


My Father's War

by Macavity116



Series: Stormbreaker Spinoff Series [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Amputation, Autobiography, Childhood Memories, Coming of Age, F/M, Harm to Children, Kidnapping, Mild Romantic Content, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Original Universe, Politics, Prequel, Rescue Missions, Revised Version (In-Universe), Self-Insert, Time Travel, War, plot heavy, war related violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macavity116/pseuds/Macavity116
Summary: Blake Robinson is the eldest son of the President of the United States. During his youth, Blake's misadventures tended to be quite innocent... harassing Secret Service agents, spilling the beans to journalists, and falling in love with the princess of a distant country.But when World War Three breaks out, an older and wiser Blake throws himself into the epicenter of the conflict, embarking on a mission to rescue the girl he loves and return her to her family.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: Stormbreaker Spinoff Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967476
Kudos: 1





	1. Once More, With Feeling

Chapter One  
Once More, With Feeling

_“The greatest crime we can commit is to forget the sins of our forbears.”_

_\- Nobukazu Igarashi, Director of the United Nations Human Rights Council, 2051 to 2066_

======

  
The voicemail was from Christopher Wright, the historian and author of the bestseller _Gambling the Future: Explaining Akira's Secret Victory._ I have a great working relationship with him, just like with most other history writers, and he’s also collaborated with my daughter on her own investigations.  
  
Wright left a message saying that I should seek out and meet with an old man named Igarashi. Apparently, this individual recently got in contact with Wright, eager to share some interesting historical artefacts with him. Wright took one look at what this old man was offering and immediately called me.  
  
This was in early June of 2082, and I was hearing a lot of stories by then. I had just published _The Stormbreakers._ The book was about the men and woman who fought alongside Jericho during the War in Heaven. I was one of them. Since then, I can’t take two steps outside of my house in Honolulu without someone catching me and suggesting a topic for my next book. Millions of other stories from that day are in danger of being forgotten.  
  
Wright piqued my curiosity, and I couldn’t turn down a family friend. He’s helped out my daughter Himawari on her own archeological digs so many times that she’s taken to calling him “The History Dude.” It didn’t take much prompting on Chris’ part to motivate me; I was on the Hyperline with Igarashi before a couple of days went by. Turns out, it wasn’t just any old man. It was the long-retired Nobukazu Igarashi, who was once a powerful member of the United Nations government. He served under Secretary-General Harper and resigned when Etienne took over in 2066. Igarashi told me that he wanted to share a large stack of recently declassified papers that was released by the UN Government. Naturally, I was on the first flight to Toyota City after that.  
  
The “papers,” as it turned out, was an absolutely massive trove of documents, audio and video recordings, data drives, computers, handwritten notes, books, binders, and folders all filled to the busting point with information that was until just recently, very highly classified. Nearly every item in the cache was related to an official government investigation into the activities of one of my greatest enemies, someone I haven’t seen since the War in Heaven over forty years ago.  
  
Akira Robinson... _the Paradox._  
  
In life, she was a powerful Psionic who travelled through time, re-writing and tampering with our history in an effort to create her sick and twisted vision of a perfect future, one in which Humanity used Psionics to stand dominant in a Galaxy where all other races were diminished. Fortunately, this scenario did not come to pass, and Akira’s dark dreams for an evil “Empire of Man” died with her during the War in Heaven.  
  
In death, the Paradox has proven to be one of the greatest mysteries in history. Her movements throughout both the cosmos and timeline are difficult to track and analyze, but some people are trying to do just that. My daughter’s friend, Chris Wright, has devoted his entire adult life to studying Akira and attempting to make some sense of her actions. He has written and published over two dozen books about her, including the critically acclaimed _Battle of Aoraki_ , which tells the story of Mami Tamihana’s now-legendary battle with the Paradox. It competed heavily with my own book, _Faith in Chaos,_ for the top slot of the _Proxima Centauri Times_ bestseller list for two months, helping to spread the truth about this crucial moment in history even further throughout the Galaxy.[[1]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftn1)  
  
When I saw this massive cache of documents and data, it was clear at a glance that a full investigation was warranted. I contacted some friends and family for help, and help came quickly. My wife, Chihiro Tachibana, our daughter, Himawari, and Himawari’s oldest child, Varian, all showed up to help us read through these crucial documents. At Himawari’s request, Christopher Wright arrived about a day later and joined the investigation as well. We read every document multiple times, wrote enough notes to fill a textbook, and finally built a timeline of events from what we discovered. Varian and Chihiro nearly burned their eyes out watching the video collection and sifting through computer data. Himawari and Chris organized the physical documents in a way that made sense.  
  
Eventually, after nearly a month of investigating, cataloguing, discussing and debating, we had a much clearer idea of just how active Akira Robinson was during the early years of my own life. Our collective worldview was shattered. Varian was floored. Chris needed several beers to calm his nerves, and my wife was feeling justifiably paranoid. All of us, including Chris and Igarashi, sat down for a meeting to talk about what we were going to do with this newfound knowledge of ours.  
  
Finally, I made the decision to make this information known, and to do so in a way that would attract the most eyes. By this point, I was already well-known throughout the United Nations. Not only was I an ex-Stormbreaker and an author with several books to my name, but I was (at the time) still embroiled in the aftermath of an unsuccessful candidacy for Secretary General of the United Nations. Even though I lost to the incumbent Pascal Etienne, I was a very popular candidate and made it to the final round of the election. My name is out there, and we knew full well that people would listen to anything I have to say. That’s why I’ve written this book, my second autobiography, to send this story as far and wide as possible.  
  
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single famous person in the history of the Galaxy who wrote a book specifically to contradict or overwrite a previously published autobiography. Yet here we are. Good reader, if you ever purchased a copy of my autobiography, _The Siege of Hiroshima: The Men and Women who Made the World_ , you need to get your money back. If you have a copy in your home, throw it out. Or better yet, destroy it.  
  
It’s time to put the puzzle together, now I know that I’ve found all of the pieces. This is the _correct version_ of my own life story, the tale of how I became a founding member of the Stormbreakers; told once more from my own perspective, but also adding in and accounting for all the details that Akira Robinson attempted to conceal or destroy. This is the version of the story the Paradox would prefer never saw the light of day…  
  
…  
  
I was born and raised in Michigan’s greatest city, but my story doesn’t start until I was about eleven and a half years old. My sister and I were thick as thieves. We had to be, because we were the only African-American children at our school. We felt like outsiders, even in our own neighborhood.  
  
Our family was a controversial one. Back in the early 2000’s, when Humans were the only intelligent species on the planet, we argued and bickered over things that seem trivial here in 2084. My father, Jason Dennis, was a white Irishman. My mother, Angeline, was a black Frenchwoman. In modern times, absolutely no one would have a problem with this sort of pairing. But if you lived in Detroit in the earliest part of the century, you were in for a rough ride.  
  
Plenty of people in Detroit had something to say about my parents, and it usually depended on how old they were. Nearly all of the kids in my school were white, so they would sometimes squirm at the sight of my mom and dad, then say something like:  
  
“How does that even work?”  
  
Or  
  
“So, you’re black, right? How come you don’t talk like a black person?”  
  
Or  
  
“Your sister doesn’t look black. She looks like an Arab.”  
  
Adults, meanwhile, were a little more subtle with their prejudice. They said things like:  
  
“You must have overcome a few challenges, family like that.”  
  
And  
  
“So which culture are you with now?”  
  
And  
  
“You’re adopted, right?”  
  
Before I was twelve years old, I lost track of how often a stranger said things like that. I guess that makes it hard to believe me when I said I had friends back then.  
  
No, Pre-Hyperspace Humanity wasn’t as bad as the TV shows and movies make it out to be. Modern filmmakers like Frankie Ranginui depict Earth before 2015 as though it was some kind of lawless anarchy or worse, and that everybody was distrustful and nasty towards one another until Jericho united us during the Second Hyperspace War. That’s just not true. Sure, Jackie and I were outliers in our youth, but we were not the constantly bullied, miserable, desperate-to-be-saved street urchins certain TV networks claim us to be. (I won’t use names. You know who you are.)  
  
Jackie ran with a crowd of girlfriends after school each day. Their shared passion was cute animals, and they nearly always spent their free time volunteering at the animal shelter in Grosse Pointe. My circle of friends was much smaller. In fact, I only had two friends, but the three of us always enjoyed hanging out together. Cody[[2]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftn2), Erin[[3]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftn3), and I were all fans of science fiction. We usually gathered at lunch to talk about the newest episode of _Star Trek_. (A TV show about fictional Human space explorers) We only talked about the most important parts of the show: Which alien spaceship Cody wanted to fly, which planet I wanted to explore, and which of the handsome spacemen Erin had a crush on this week.  
  
Sometimes I miss being nine years old. I liked my life and I was generally happy. But that was the year my life irreversibly changed.  
  
In 2003, just a few weeks after my tenth birthday, my dad came home from a meeting with some up-and-coming politicians. At the time, JD Robinson was a professor of social science at some big university downtown. He told us that “the iron was hot and it was time to strike.”  
  
“If I don’t do this now,” he said, “I’ll never have the chance again.”  
  
That’s how I found out my dad was running for President of the United States.  
  
Jackie and I, our lives changed overnight. Suddenly, we were the most popular kids in school. Every adult wanted to ask questions about my dad or pass on some message of support to him. Kids made up excuses to sit near us or join us on group projects. Then the school councilor pulled us into his office and reminded us that we needed to set the best example at all times.  
  
“You are the face of Barton Elementary School now.” He said. “This is your chance to prove to the world that character counts.”  
  
All I remember is that we proved we were just kids. Every day, news reporters and paparazzi would camp outside of school grounds and try to catch me and my little sister as we walked home. Other kids got in the way, a lot. Some punks wanted to do skateboard tricks on national television, and there were a few girls who thought that now was the best time to launch their acting careers. One girl was so desperate to get on TV she threw herself at me. Literally.  
  
And don’t you think for a moment that Jackie and I were happy about suddenly becoming the center of attention. Far from it. If anything, our situation actually got worse. People were only interested in us because our dad was famous, and we knew it. I remember Jackie shoving away some wannabe fangirls and calling them “shallow.” She alienated a bunch of her own friends when she realized they were trying to use her to get close to a camera.  
  
In the middle of all this, my dad was running his campaign. Looking back on it now, I have to admit he was right. The American President back then was an old man named George White,[[4]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftn4) and he was very unpopular. In 2001, the US was hit by the worst terrorist attack in history. Thousands died. In response, President White led our country into war against the organization responsible. Unfortunately, there was a hitch.  
  
The terrorists who attacked our country came from a place called Afghanistan. It’s a medium-sized nation in Central Asia and at the time they were having their own civil war. One of the two sides in that fight was under the protection of the Soviet Union, a really big and powerful country that America didn’t get along with.  
  
For about two years, American and Soviet soldiers operated in Afghanistan, each fighting their own chosen enemy, but the situation got politically complicated, and things spiraled so badly out of control that US and Soviet forces started shooting at each other instead. Things came to a head at the Battle of Kandahar, where the Soviets beat the Americans so badly that all US forces retreated from Afghanistan before the year was over. America was humiliated in front of the entire world. President White was humiliated in front of the American people.  
  
My dad was one of two people looking to take down the President during the next election. The Democratic Party nominated a Senator from West Virginia named Herbert Dunn.[[5]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftn5) Unfortunately, Dunn was proving to be out-of-touch with the issues. With a pair of weak candidates in the running, my dad saw his opportunity and seized it. Back then, I just assumed he didn’t care about how his campaign was wrecking my life and Jackie's. He was so busy traveling the country to meet voters that I honestly thought he’d simply forgotten about us. He certainly didn’t notice when I snuck out of the house one night with Cody and Erin. We spent a whole night vandalizing “Vote for Robinson” signs all over Detroit.  
  
He forgot to ask if Jackie and I wanted to leave behind our old lives and move to some big mansion really far away from our friends. (We did not.)  
  
At least he remembered to pick us up from school on that final day.  
  
…  
  
 _November 5, 2004  
Cobo Hall, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America_  
  
  
“Almost there, kids. Are you excited or what?”  
  
Dad was busy trying to navigate his car through the crowded streets, so he couldn’t see Jackie and I in the backseat, silently crumbling up our “Vote for Robinson" stickers and throwing them out the window.  
  
“When can we go home?” Jackie whined. “I wanted to read the new Harry Potter book tonight!”  
  
“You’ve got a TV in your office.” I grumbled. “Why couldn’t you just watch the election in there and leave us alone?”  
  
“Kids, you won’t be talking like that tonight.” Mom snapped from the front seat. “I invited ABC and CNN to the lounge with us. You need to be on your best behavior tonight.”  
  
“But it'd be so much easier to behave if we were back home!” I shouted and kicked the back of mom's seat.  
  
“None of that, Blake.” Dad didn’t raise his voice. “You’re eleven years old now. Time to start learning how to be a man.”  
  
I fell into angry silence and just watched through the windscreen as Cobo Hall came into view. The event center was packed. It seemed like all of Detroit was here for a massive election-night party. All around the building were people waving signs that said stuff like “Robinson for America!” and “The People aren’t speaking, they’re shouting!” and “White-out President White!”  
  
Inside, it was even more chaotic. I was much shorter back then, so I could only see an unending forest of chattering people that mom pulled me through by the hand. I kept a very tight grip on Jackie’s arm the whole way. She didn’t say anything, just made an uncomfortable whimpering sound All the way across the convention hall floor until we reached a staircase leading away from the noise and bustle.  
  
The lounge, as it turned out, was a wide, comfy space that overlooked the Detroit River. On the far wall, someone set up a dozen large television screens, so that we could watch a dozen different news shows all at once. ABC, CNBC, FOX, and BBC were all playing at a low volume while dad's running mate fiddled with a remote control. News reporters, politicians, and supporters mingled together, all chattering excitedly about today's election.  
  
Jackie and I finally got away from mom and secluded ourselves in a corner by the wide window. We huddled up together and waited the evening out as best we could.  
  
“What’s gonna happen if dad wins?” Jackie asked. “Would we really have to move away?”  
  
“Yeah, probably.” I admitted.  
  
Before we left school that day, I asked the teacher to show me on a globe how far Washington was from Detroit. The answer was scary. As we all gathered in the lounge just upstairs from the Cobo Hall Ballroom, my little sister was so frightened that she started to cry in my arms while our parents and their friends gathered around the televisions.  
  
“I don’t wanna move away.” Jackie said. “I don’t wanna start some other school, it’ll be worse than now!”  
  
I put my arm around Jackie’s shoulder and we stayed there for about an hour, wallowing in our own fears and anxieties. Then, sometime around 8 o'clock, there was an eruption of noise from the group of adults. Someone cheered loudly:  
  
“Turn up CNN! Turn it up!”  
  
“This just in.” a news reporter announced through the screen. “CNN can now project that the state of Delaware and its four Electoral Votes have been won by President George White!”  
  
About thirty grown adults started booing and hissing as an image of the President appeared on the screen. Outside in the convention hall, about five thousand people were watching the election on a jumbotron and they made their own displeasure known. The noise echoed off the buildings and across the river into Canada.  
  
Then, the floodgates opened.  
  
“Fox News reports that President White has won the states of South Carolina, Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island.” One reporter said. Another one cut in:  
  
“MSNBC can now confirm that Independent candidate JD Robinson has won the states of New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The professor from Wayne State University is giving our President a real challenge tonight!”  
  
Cheers and clapping caused Jackie and I to cover our ears! It was so loud the window next to us vibrated. Mom came over and gave the two of us a great big hug.  
  
“Isn’t this wonderful?” mom gushed.  
  
“Leave us alone!” Jackie cried.  
  
“Go away.” I pouted.  
  
The metaphorical hammer was falling. Millions of votes had been cast, and now they were counted. News reporters were tripping over one another to announce the results, while on one screen, a map of the United States appeared. Each state was colored in to reflect whichever candidate was declared the winner. Red states went to the President. Blue states were for Senator Dunn. Green states were in my dad's corner. Right away I noted something that gave me a lot of hope.  
  
“Jackie, look!” I shook my sister’s shoulder and pointed towards the map. “Dad's loosing!”  
  
About half of the states were colored in now, and nearly all of them were red. There were four states in green and just one was blue. President White was cleaning house! Jackie and I ran over to the group of watchers and started cheering like football fans.  
  
“Go President White!” We cheered. “Go red! Go red!”  
  
Then the big one happened.  
  
“The Associated Press now reports that Professor Robinson has won the Wolverine State!”  
  
The hall filled with noise. People were jumping up and down, hugging and crying. Women screamed and men clapped one another on the back. Everyone was happy. The crowd in the hall below erupted into celebration while red, white, and blue fireworks lit up the Detroit River. The Renaissance Tower was illuminated with green lights and a virtual banner that said: “Robinson wins Michigan!”  
  
Before Jackie and I could say a word, two more states joined the green team. Illinois and Texas voted for my dad, but were separated from one another by an ocean of red states.  
  
“It’s not enough!” Jackie and I gasped. “White’s gonna win!”  
  
Meanwhile, dad's running mate broke out a calculator and started doing some math. After a moment, he muted the televisions and addressed the group:  
  
“California” said FBI Director Trevor MacDonald.[[6]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftn6) “It all comes down to them. If President White wins in California, the election will end in a tie. However, if California goes green, we’ll win by a single vote.”  
  
I was stunned. Jackie and I went over the map again and again. President White had won thirty-eight out of fifty states. Our dad only got ten states. Senator Dunn was out of the race. The only state he won was his home turf, West Virginia. The only state left was California. This made no sense to me. From where I was standing, looking at the map, it appeared that President White was winning in a landslide.  
  
Jackie and I were both very scared now. All we could do was watch and hope that President White could pull off a miracle.  
  
“It’s an unusual combination.” A Fox News anchor was saying. “A college professor and the FBI Director on the same ticket, but JD Robinson and Trevor MacDonald were colleagues during the Justice Department’s campaign against cybercriminals four years ago. Their collaboration so far has proven to be quite successful.”  
  
A political analyst cut across the reporter.  
  
“Now I wouldn’t say ‘successful’ just yet.” The expert said. “Let’s take a closer look at those numbers. In each of the ten states Robinson won tonight, it was a close call. He’s got the plurality of the votes in states like Michigan, Texas, Virginia, and New York, sure. But in all of those green states, Robinson failed to get more than fifty percent of the vote. In Texas alone, Robinson's margin of victory was close enough that a recount is already being discussed there. Make no mistake, Robinson is just barely winning right now, and that could all change in the next few minutes.”  
  
Both of the men on the screen vanished and were replaced by a graphic with lots of numbers:  
  
 _National Popular Vote*  
(Republican) President White: 52,314,580  
(Democrat) Senator Dunn: 17,190,103  
(Independent) JD Robinson: 27,433,998  
*Results not complete. States remaining: California, Hawaii, Alaska_  
  
These words and numbers were like a shot in the arm for my sister and I. We both jumped up and cheered alongside all of my dad's supporters, albeit for a different reason. In the back of the room, a man dressed in a snappy looking suit opened a portable safe and withdrew four objects: two different bottles of champagne and two sheets of paper. The first paper had the word “Victory" written in blue across the top while the other had the word “Concession" spelled in red. At the same moment, one of the journalists in the room with us closed his laptop computer and shouted:  
  
“It’s over! Turn on CNN!”  
  
A hush fell across the room as all eyes fell on the one TV playing CNN. Jackie and I held onto one another tightly and I whispered reassuringly.  
  
“Dad lost. We’re going home. It’s going to be okay.”  
  
Finally, the CNN anchor stopped mid-sentence as a producer got his attention.  
  
“This just in!” the anchor began. “At 11:01 pm Eastern Daylight Time, CNN network is able to say that the state of California and its game-ending 55 Electoral Votes will go to…”  
  
The pause felt like it lasted for a million years. I felt like I died several times in that second from anxiety alone.  
  
“Robinson and MacDonald! The American people have chosen to give their leader the pink slip, and now on this historic evening-"  
  
I don’t remember anything he said after that. I was in shock. All I could do was repeatedly ask myself the same question:  
  
 _How could someone win just eleven out of fifty states and still get to be President!?_  
  
…  
  
The answer is twofold: First, the American Electoral College does allow for a person to become President of the United States while receiving a minimum of popular votes. This sort of thing was rare, but it did happen. The second answer is the more important of the two:  
  
Amongst the many papers, hard drives, data disks, and documents Igarashi provided to me, there was a digitized file containing police reports from the day of the 2004 Election. On that day, a grand total of eleven states (out of fifty) voted for my dad. In the biggest cities of these states, there was a sudden _and massive_ spike in the number of people calling the police to report a “suspicious person” loitering around voting places. All of these cases were investigated, and none were resolved. The suspicious individual was never found.  
  
Both Chris Wright and my grandchild Varian are of the opinion that this suspicious individual hanging around polling places during the election was the Paradox, Akira Robinson. (Or possibly an accomplice of hers) Her telepathic powers would have allowed her to sway just enough voters to turn the tide of the election. The evidence is circumstantial at best, but it was enough to shut down all of my arguments against their theory. The results of the election ended up being so close that Akira would have needed to change the minds of only a few hundred voters, perhaps a few dozen per state, a task she was more than capable of accomplishing.  
  
…  
  
Back to the election…  
  
If you were a bystander on the Canadian side of the Detroit River at the moment the election ended, you might have thought that Detroit simply blew up. People cheered and clapped and screamed. Car horns blared into the cold night, office and apartment lights flashed. Cargo ships on the water sounded their foghorns. Men and women were dancing in the streets while in the suburbs, spontaneous block parties broke out. In Cobo Hall, thousands of spectators raised their voices as one. People threw hats and gloves into the air, the chilly climate forgotten in a moment.  
  
For me, the moment was painful. Both metaphorically and physically. I felt as though the floor was falling out from under me, and the earliest signs of a panic attack were creeping into the peripherals of my vision. At the same time, Jackie screamed loudly and swung at me, scratching my face with her fingernails.  
  
“We did it." Mom grabbed dad and squealed with joy. “We went all the way!”  
  
FBI Director MacDonald, who was now the Vice President-Elect, popped open a bottle of champagne and cheered. One of the journalists ran over to my dad and stuck a microphone in his face.  
  
“Professor Robinson, you’ve just been elected President of the United States! What are you going to do now?”  
  
Jackie and I nearly screamed as dad drew ourselves plus mom into a great big group hug.  
  
“I’m going to tell my family I love them!” my dad gushed, “And thank them for their support!”  
  
I started to vocalize a set of very rude, angry words, but dad squeezed me to his side so tightly that all I could manage was a furious little squeak. The reporter looked down at Jackie and me, then he said:  
  
“I’ll bet the two of you must be super excited to move to the White House. Did you ever imagine you’d get to spend your childhood in such an incredible place?”  
  
“Never.” I couldn’t keep the contempt out of my voice. “Not even once.”  
  
  


* * *

[[1]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftnref1) Both books were adapted into competing feature length movies in 2083. _Faith in Chaos_ outperformed _Battle of Aoraki_ at the box office thanks to the famed Human actor Malina Browning and her award-winning performance as Mami Tamihana.  
[[2]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftnref2) Cody Neumann (1993-2015) was employed at Detroit’s Renaissance Center after graduating high school. Was reported missing by his family in March of 2015 and never seen again. Now thought to be one of the earliest victims of alien abduction before the 2015 Conquest of Earth.  
[[3]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftnref3) Erin Bowie (1992-2027) was employed as a part-time worker at a small establishment in downtown Detroit. Survived the Conquest of Earth and lived under ADVENT rule for twelve years. In 2027, Erin complained to her friends of symptoms consistent with a viral infection; she visited the Detroit Gene Therapy Clinic. Erin never returned. During the 2036 Tribunals, the Global Truth and Reconciliation Commission was able to confirm that Erin was murdered by ADVENT during this ill-fated visit.  
[[4]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftnref4) George White (1946-2015) was a lifelong politician, serving as a Senator, Governor, and President of the United States. Was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Alexis Alexander in 2015, but the Conquest of Earth occurred before he could assume office. White disappeared during the rise of the ADVENT Coalition and is presumed to have been liquidated by the collaborationist regime. GTRC investigations have failed to produce verifiable evidence of his fate.  
[[5]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftnref5) Herbert Dunn (1961-2015) was a prominent Democratic lawmaker in the United States, originally from West Virginia, he represented his home state in the Senate for twenty-five years. The 2006 Election caused Senator Dunn to fall from grace, allowing Senator Barack Obama to displace him as the de-facto leader of the Democratic Party. Dunn was liquidated by the ADVENT Coalition during their takeover in 2015.  
[[6]](https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/#_ftnref6) Trevor MacDonald (1959-2015) served as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1994 until 2005. He is most well remembered for his campaigns against cybercriminals during the “wild west” days of the early internet. MacDonald was liquidated by the ADVENT Coalition during their takeover in 2015.


	2. Inaugurations and Interventions

Chapter Two

Inaugurations and Interventions

_“Make no mistake, this is the beginning of an era for mankind. What we do now will echo throughout history. Your children, their children, and theirs after them will remember you and I as the people who put our world on the path to a bright future!”_

_\- JD Robinson, President of the United States, 2005 to 2013_

======

_January 20, 2005_

_The United States Capitol, Washington, District of Columbia_

Winter in Washington isn’t all that different from winter back home. Cold wind, short days, and that weak sunlight that makes fresh snow sparkle in a way kids like me always found magical. Sadly, on my first day in the nation’s capital, I only got to be outside for a few hours. I spent that time either being bored out of my mind or having a strange experience that wouldn’t make sense until I was much, much older.

The boredom happened first. The Presidential Inauguration is a monumentally important event that children really have no place in. There is a long list of traditions and ceremonies that need to be carried out before a new US President can take office. Now, I’m fully aware of the fact that less than one tenth of the people who read my previous book were Americans, and that non-Humans make up a measurable fraction of the remainder. I’ll try to keep my explanations of American government systems simple.

My family showed up in the District of Columbia[1] before the sun came up on the 20th of January. Jackie and I were tired. We threw about two and a half months’ worth of temper tantrums before this point. Basically, we refused to leave our home in Detroit and put up one hell of a fight. Our parents eventually dislodged us by a combination of bribery, threats of punishment, and the stern reminder that we were in fact children and we couldn’t choose where to live. By January, we just kind of gave up and said reluctant goodbyes to our friends. We gave one another those emotional hugs and promises to keep in touch, the type of promise a kid makes when they know they’re about to be permanently separated from a friend and lose touch anyway.

Our first stop was the US Capitol in the District of Columbia. I remember learning about this place in school, but textbooks really don’t do it justice. Jackie and I were dressed in our absolute best, and our mom didn’t wait for her term as First Lady to start before she began dressing like one. The new First Family (that’s us) and about two hundred US lawmakers were gathered together in the Senate chamber, along with several members of the Supreme Court.

Waiting for us in the room was the outgoing Vice President, June Syers.[2] She’s an absolutely ancient black woman who could have been my grandmother’s mother. She was physically crippled and unable to get out of her wheelchair. During the 2004 election, Syers ran for a second term along with President White. When my dad defeated White, Syers went down with him. So now, my dad’s running mate was here to take her job.

Trevor MacDonald shook hands with the Vice President and greeted her warmly. Vice President Syers laughed and said,

“C’mere, son.”

And she drew him into a hug. Congressmen applauded while the Speaker of the House of Representatives held up a small black book and addressed Trevor:

“Place your right hand here and repeat after me: ‘I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.’”

When he was finished, Vice President MacDonald shook hands with his predecessor again. Then Mrs. Syers, who was just an ordinary citizen now, skillfully maneuvered her wheelchair down the hallway and shook hands with my dad.

“Are you ready young man? It’s time.”

My dad fell in step behind Mrs. Syers. The Robinson family followed him, and the members of Congress followed behind us. We left the Capitol building through a large doorway, and came upon a sight that took my breath away.

A platform was built along the western entrance of the Capitol, facing out towards the National Mall. (a wide grassy park) I could see the Washington Monument in the distance, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was the _people._ Later on, I found out that there were some three-hundred-thousand Americans crammed into the National Mall. But in that moment, if you told eleven-year-old Blake that there were a million people out there, he definitely would have believed you.

The Inauguration stage was packed with important people. A former President was here as well: George H. W. Bush[3] was bundled up in a heavy coat to keep the cold air away. They were accompanied by hundreds of prominent American politicians and businesspeople, as well as guests from all over the world. In the middle of it all, there was a podium that overlooked the National Mall, the perfect thing for giving a speech to the American people. There were two people standing next to it, waiting for my dad: The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and President George White.

The outgoing leader of America looked just as tired and worn out as Jackie and I. As we took our seats, I couldn’t help but feel like the one thing President White really needed was a soft chair and some time to nap. My dad shook hands with both men, and then the big moment came:

“I, Joshua Dennis Robinson, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

…

Dad’s oath was much shorter than Trevor’s. I don’t remember why. What I do remember is that as soon as my dad became President, George White handed him a simple grey briefcase. The two shook hands one more time and then my dad turned to give a speech.

He talked for about twenty minutes. Dad thanked everyone who voted for him and offered some kind words for those who voted against him. Then he discussed his plan to strengthen America's defenses against terrorism as well as his goals for the economy. Finally, dad ended his speech with a direct message of support to the American soldiers who fought in the Afghan War.

“This is the start of something new.” My dad finished. “We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we’ve now taken the all important first step. Let’s bring our country forward into the new millennium together.”

The crowd wouldn’t stop cheering and clapping for three full minutes.

…

After the Inauguration, there was a parade. Soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen marched past the Capitol in formation, while famous political groups like the League of Women Voters and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People passed out patriotic balloons to children in the crowd. After that came the “luncheon.” I’d never heard that word beforehand and it left a very negative impression on me. Basically, we sat down in a big fancy dining hall with bunch of rich and powerful Americans who spent an hour singing praises for my dad while we all snacked on food that wasn’t filling.

About half an hour into the luncheon, I looked around for anything interesting. I was trying to find something to alleviate my rapidly growing sense of boredom. A few more minutes in this stuffy room with uninteresting adults would have driven me insane. I leaned over to talk to my sister.

“Hey Jacks.” I hissed. “You bored? I’m bored.”

“No way.” Jackie whispered back. “I’m waiting for dad to find out. I wanna see the look on his face.”

“Find out what?” I asked in a low voice.

“That old guy gave dad a present on the stage.” Jackie whispered, “Dad left it up there, he doesn’t know we left it behind. I’ll be he pops a fuse when he sees it’s gone.”

Jackie squirmed in her chair with excitement. This gave me an idea. I wanted to take this a little further. I was still a kid, and my thought process back then was… shall we say… _irrational_.

“Maybe we can get back at dad for forcing us to move out here.” I whispered. “If we get that gift first, we can hide it for a few days. Maybe forever?”

Jackie nodded quickly.

“You know where it is?” she asked. “Right by the tall thing with the microphones.”

I nodded.

“Just like the school choir show last year.” I said. “Same plan.”

Without waiting for me to say anything else, Jackie got down from her chair and ran around mom’s back. This plan worked a few times before, and I saw no reason for it to fail now.

“Dad! Dad! Dad!” Jackie cried, fake tears welling up in her eyes. “This big guy asked me why my skin’s a funny color!”

She pointed towards the Senate Majority Leader, who was busy talking to someone else and didn’t realize he’d been accused of anything until my dad, the President, stood up and started closing the distance on him. Whatever happened next, I didn’t see. As all eyes were on my dad, nobody noticed me slip out of the room. At least, that’s what I thought.

You could say I had tunnel vision. I was so focused on my plan to get some passive-aggressive payback that I didn’t look in any direction other than forward. I remembered the path we took through the Capitol building to reach the luncheon and I retraced my steps very quickly. Down one corridor and up a stairwell, I was out in the next hallway when the gentle _ding_ of an elevator door caught my ears.

I looked around. Someone was following me through the capitol building. An Irish-American woman with dull reddish grey hair was tailing me at a distance. She wore a simple white blouse beneath a heavy winter coat and a ballcap that said in white letters:

“ _Secret Service_

 _US Department of Homeland Security_ ”

Oh, I remember the feeling of terror that washed over me when I realized exactly who this person was. My sister and I were warned about the Secret Service by Trevor before his was sworn in.

Before being elected Vice President, Mr. MacDonald was the leader of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the preeminent law enforcement agency in America. He told me that the Secret Service were “a force unto themselves and not to be messed with.”

So, I instinctively did the thing I’m sure plenty of kids would have done if they were in my position. I shouted to the Secret Service agent:

“Buzz off and leave me alone!”

I turned around and started walking towards the inauguration stage again. I could see from a map on the wall that I still needed to climb two more sets of stairs and cross over to the other side of the building. Quite a ways to go. Then, there was the thudding of rapid footsteps behind me. I knew that the agent was jogging to catch up with me and I started to run down the hallway for the next elevator, but it was no use. The agent was a fully grown woman and I was just a kid.

I didn’t go more than a dozen paces before the woman grabbed me by the arm and said:

“An just where do ya think you’re goin’ lad?” The agent spoke in an Irish accent that was so intense I had to strain my ears just to understand what she was saying. “First Family’s gotta stay together until after finishing the lunch!”

“Get off me!” I pulled against her arm as hard as I could. Back in 2005, colored children like me knew to avoid interacting with law enforcement wherever possible, and I just assumed the Secret Service were some kind of Super Cops.

“I really don’ think so, lad.” The agent replied. “Yer not to be wanderin’ off by yourself. What are you even doin’ down here anyway?”

Realizing I wasn’t going to get far with this lady grabbing onto me, I stopped struggling and thought through my next actions. I quickly planned out an escape: I would tell a half-truth, just enough to let me get out of her sight, then resume my ploy to make dad feel bad for moving the family away from Michigan.

“My dad left something on the stage.” I said. “I told him that I’d get it and bring it back. If you don’t let me go, you’re going to get in trouble with him.”

The agent laughed.

“Oh really now?” She replied. “Now why don’ you tell me what your daddy left behind and maybe I’ll help you get it back.”

“A briefcase.” I answered. “That grey thing Mr. White gave him just before dad gave his speech.”

As best I can remember, it all happened in about three seconds:

In that first moment, the agent grabbed me around the middle and lifted me over her shoulder, springing into a run at the same time. I shouted and yelled and hit her in the back with my fists, but it was no good.

In the second moment, the agent carried me into an empty office, dropped me unceremoniously on a desktop and then slammed the door behind her.

In that last moment, the agent drew two objects from her winter coat. The first was one of those large walkie-talkies made famous by the ET movie. The other object was…

“Jesus Christ!” I screamed, “Is that a gun!?”

The agent pressed herself against the office doorway, holding it closed. She pointed her gun at the floor and talked into her radio:

“Nix calling all units on this net!” She shouted. “This is Nix callin’ everyone! Fumble! Say again! Fumble on the play! Live ball at the goal line!”

The office had no windows, but I could hear the wail of a police siren followed by the squealing of tires. The agent called “Nix” uttered the one curse word my mom said she would kill me for using, then looked over at me.

“Ya did right sayin’ something, lad.” She said. “This could end really badly. Jus’ wait.”

…

Meanwhile, something curious was happening about half a mile away.

It had taken nearly an hour for all of the people attending the inauguration to clear out of the National Mall. Capitol police officers generally did their best to keep order, and the whole day was looking like it would end in a peaceful manner. But, as the great mess of people filtered away, there were three individuals who did not leave the premises. Two of them stood together, staring at the nation’s capital through binoculars.

For the past seventy years, the names of these two individuals were unknown. But thanks to the declassified documents Igarashi gave me, I can now reveal with one hundred percent confidence that these two people were agents of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

In 2005, the USSR (sometimes called the Soviet Union) was a dying empire on its last legs. The Soviet Union, largest nation on Earth, was in the middle of a decline that spanned multiple decades. Most of their foreign allies had either fallen to revolution or defected over to the American side of the Cold War. By the time my dad became President of the US, the Soviet Union stood alone as what my dad called “America’s final enemy.” The only thing that held the USSR together these days was a string of highly improbable military triumphs and victories that can only be described as miracles or acts of God.

Rafal Kowalski[4] and Ivan Kuznetsov[5] were both members of the Soviet Red Army, and were personally selected for this mission by some of the highest-ranking members of the Communist Party. Even still, they couldn’t believe their luck. Rafal looked around for cops and security guards while Ivan peered through his binoculars at the podium where President Robinson gave his inaugural address mere hours ago. The President’s Nuclear Briefcase was laying unattended by the podium, in the open where anyone could snatch it.

“It’s still there.” Ivan breathed. “How could they have left it in the open so foolishly?”

“They have clearly made a mistake.” Rafal said. “We may not get such an opportunity again.”

Ivan put his binoculars away.

“Can you imagine what the KGB will do with a briefcase full of America’s nuclear secrets? It will be an intelligence coup de ’grace!”

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, comrade.” Rafal warned his friend. “We must secure the case first and…”

He trailed off. Rafal tapped Ivan on the shoulder.

“To your left.” Rafal said in a low voice. “Five hundred meters, that girl was watching us.”

“How can you be sure?” Ivan squinted to get a better look. “It looks like she’s running towards a car.”

…

On the other side of the National Mall, two DC cops sat down in their car and let out a long, contented sigh. Their radios squeaked and a voice spoke up:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Chief of Police. That might have been the best inauguration we’ve ever done. No injuries or arrests. Extra coffee for you all when you get back to the precinct.”

“Aye, I’ll drink to that!” The senior cop declared from the driver’s seat.

“Maybe the Chief’ll give some of us the day off tomorrow.” Suggested his partner. “God knows we need the rest.”

The senior officer looked up from the car’s dashboard and groaned.

“Wake up, buddy. This girl looks like she’s in trouble.”

Both cops clambered out of their car just as a girl ran up to them at full speed. Unfortunately, there is no surviving dashcam footage of what happened next. However, the junior cop, a man named Kevin Zimmerman, lived a further sixty years after these events and he formally testified to the UN Truth and Reconciliation Commission about what happened next. This next section is a recreation of that testimony:

An Asian-American girl, roughly seventeen or eighteen years of age, ran towards the police car, waving her arms to get the officer’s attention.

“Alright, ma’am.” Said Officer Zimmerman. “What’s the problem?”

“I-I-I saw a… a- a- thing!” The girl gasped, panting from the effort of running. “Someone left a package by the podium and never came back for it. You guys need to call the bomb squad!”

She pointed towards the podium. With half a century of hindsight, we know full well that she was talking about the Nuclear Briefcase. In that moment, Officer Zimmerman was the type of cop who took a bomb threat very seriously. He immediately picked up his radio and called it in. Meanwhile, Zimmerman’s partner was looking over the girl’s shoulder and spotted two men slowly making their way towards the strange grey rectangle leaning against the Presidential podium. The officer quickly crossed the street and shouted:

“You there! Stop!”

Ivan Kuznetsov and Rafal Kowalski froze in their tracks for just a moment, they looked at the cop coming their way, and then they both turned around and ran, heading south towards Arlington. Zimmerman’s partner gave chase, running fast after the two suspects. Zimmerman turned to the girl and said:

“Stay here, talk to them!”

He pointed to another DC Police car that was pulling up next to them on the side of the road. As two more cops arrived on the scene, Zimmerman went chasing after the suspects, determined to help his partner however possible.

Unfortunately, both men escaped from the police and vanished without a trace. The situation was made even worse when Zimmerman returned to the scene ten minutes later to find that the Secret Service were all over the place, detaining and interrogating everybody in a thousand-foot radius of the Presidential podium.

Why were the Secret Service doing this? That briefcase sitting on the Presidential podium was no ordinary case. It was the Nuclear Football, a device the American leader used to issue commands to military forces armed with nuclear weapons. The girl who reported the suspicious packaged ran away as soon as Zimmerman turned his back. She was missing too.

Thanks to the evidence provided by Nobukazu Igarashi, we realized there was no possible way to doubt the following conclusion: this mysterious girl who ran away was Akira Robinson, the Paradox who tampered with the destiny of the whole Galaxy. What might have happened of the Russians made off with the Nuclear Football and its contents? Thanks to the Paradox, we will never know.

…

Meanwhile, back in the capital building, Nix held her radio to her ears as a voice squawked out of the receiver. She let out a sigh of relief and declared:

“Fumble recovered!”

Nix put her gun and radio away, then grabbed me by the arm.

“Thanks for yer help, lad.” She said. “The President will be very happy to hear he got his case back."

I was still pretty shaken by everything that just happened. But after a moment, I was able to spit out the words:

“Why’s that case so important? Did you really have to do all that?”

“Never you mind about that case.” Nix replied, sounding much friendlier now. “Let’s get you back to yer family, eh?”

…

Jackie read the look on my face when I got back and knew things hadn’t worked out. The two of us stayed together as the First Family departed the luncheon hall and moved on to the final event of the day.

The last part of the Inauguration Day festivities was the parade. I’m still not sure if this was a completely different parade or the tail end of the one we saw earlier. All I know is that this time, we were actually _in the parade._

A line of big black cars pulled up to the eastern entrance of the US Capitol. One of them was an SUV that looked far heavier than normal. It parked in front of us and another Secret Service agent stepped out of a passenger door.

“Welcome to Washington, Mister President.” He said to my dad.

My family piled into the vehicle and it pulled away. The motorcade joined the parade, which was now traveling northwest along Pennsylvania Avenue. Jackie and I looked left and right out the windows, trying to be the first to see the White House. Meanwhile, people were gathering along the sides of the road, cheering and yelling at the Presidential car.

“Walk! Walk! Walk!”

“It’s tradition…” My dad said with one hand on the door handle. “For the President and his family to walk at least part of the parade route. Everyone ready? Okay, driver! Stop!”

Mom, Dad, Jackie and I all removed ourselves from the Presidential limo and stood together in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue for a moment. News reporters and photographers all gathered together and snapped several hundred pictures of us before we finally moved on. I held Jackie’s hand, and mom held mine. Dad led the way.

I looked around for any familiar landmarks, but we were pretty deep inside the city. I couldn’t even see the Washington Monument, which was pretty tall from what I can remember. Official records say my family started walking somewhere near the Ronald Regan building, right in the heart of Washington.

We walked together for about three blocks, waving to the crowds of cheering supporters the whole time. Finally, we took a left turn into a beautiful park filled with trees and statues of famous people. On our right, I saw a statue of Marquis de Lafayette, and to our left I saw…

“That’s it!” I couldn’t help but cry out. “I saw it first!”

The White House loomed large at the center of the park. A large fountain partially obstructed our view of it, but that didn’t temper my ability to appreciate such a beautiful sight.

We passed through the north entrance and found several members of the White House staff waiting for us. The Chief Usher introduced himself and allowed various members of the White House staff to say hello.

“Welcome to your new home, sir.” The Chief Usher said. “You’ll find the office of the President to have a much larger staff than you expected. Your predecessor hired many workers and officials to make your transition into office smooth and simple. All of these people will work for you now until you say otherwise.”

My dad shook hands with everyone while Jackie and I hung back near mom, looking around the big place nervously. We’d never been in a mansion before now, and we were both spooked by the fancy and expensive decorations all over the place.

“Woah.” Jackie breathed. “Are we really gonna live here from now on?”

“Certainly, ma’am.” The Chief Usher replied with a smile. “We shall make this place your home for the next four years, or eight if the American people wish it.”

* * *

[1] The District of Columbia is a federal district in the Eastern United States, located between Maryland and Virginia. This district contains the City of Washington, which is the Capitol of the United States. TRAVEL ADVISORY: According to the UN Disarmament and International Security Committee, travelling to any part of America not under the direct occupation or control of the United Nations Army is highly dangerous and strongly discouraged. Visiting any part of America without a UN military escort can and will result in your own kidnapping, robbery, rape, enslavement, conscription, vivisection, torture, death, and/or forced religious conversion.

[2] June Syers (1911-2008) was Vice President of the United States from 2001 until 2005. She spent most of her life as a civil rights activist, promoting equal rights for black women such as herself. Syers attempted to promote and pass legislation during her Vice Presidency that would have advanced the cause, but it was shot down by members of her own political party. Durin the 2004 Election, news media circulated a rumor that VP Syers was thinking about abandoning her own party and joining the Democrats. The voter reaction to this news is partially responsible for JD Robinson’s narrow victory over President White.

[3] George H. W. Bush (1924-2015) was a veteran of the Pacific War (1936 until 1945) and served as a public servant throughout his entire life. Vice President under Ronald Regan from 1984 until 1989. President of the United States from 1989 until 2001. He is best known for co-writing the Presidential Proclamation of 1989, in which himself and Ronald Regan overturned Nixon’s suspension of the US Constitution and re-established the US election system. The 1989 Proclamation had the effect of transforming the US from an Authoritarian Presidential Dictatorship into a fledgling republic basically overnight. Despite being very close to Ronald Regan, there is no evidence that Bush knew anything about Regan’s (ultimately successful) plot to overthrow President Richard Nixon in a bloody coup d'état on March 15, 1984.

[4] Rafal Kowalski (1981-2035) is the one who relayed this anecdote to me. We discussed his presence at the inauguration shortly after we both joined XCOM in 2015. He is one of the few Poles who remained loyal to the Soviet Union following the collapse of their Empire during the 1990’s.

[5] Ivan Kuznetsov (1978-2036) was the father of Stormbreaker Sophia Ackermann (née Kuznetsova) and an infamous Reaper who fought against Humanity during the Second Hyperspace War. Kuznetsov was killed by his own daughter during the Battle of Nagasaki. Received a posthumous pardon from Secretary General Pascal Etienne on January 1, 2066 and is now memorialized with a statue in his honor in Nagasaki, Japan.


	3. Secret Service Agent Kathleen Walsh

Chapter Three

Secret Service Agent Kathleen Walsh

_“Out of the thousands who work for the Secret Service, only four or five will witness an assassination attempt on a government official. That’s why the recruiting standards are so high. Those four or five individuals need to be nothing less than… Top. Men._

_\- Myron Faulke, President of the United States, 1962 to 1965_

======

If you have ever been a small child, or if you’ve ever raised one, you’ll know all about the absolutely hellish experience that is acclimating a child to a new home they don’t want to live in. Jackie and I put our parents through that nightmare for the first month of our new lives in Washington.

The White House itself was a fascinating place. There were over a hundred rooms and about two hundred employees and staffers. There were also some eight dozen cops and Secret Service agents guarding the place. The surrounding buildings contained military hardware to protect the White House from attack. The building itself had dozens of offices, at least two secret passages (that I knew about) and one ghost.

My family and a couple of friends resisted when I told them I wanted to include a mention of Abraham Lincoln in this book, but my wife knows that he played a role in our early friendship, so she overruled the rest of the Robinson Clan.

The White House was haunted by the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, a politician best known for being President of an earlier incarnation of the United States, one which predates the Zudjari Invasion of 1962. He led the nation in some long-forgotten crusade to free enslaved people. The bedroom he lived in was perfectly preserved on the second floor, and throughout all of the six years I lived in that building, I would regularly hear him pacing the floor, muttering to himself about campaigns and generals and freedmen. My sister and parents insisted I was just hearing things, but the Chief Usher told me a story of how a visiting Prime Minister of Britain once saw the ghost and spoke with him. That was enough to convince me the ghost was real.

Not that I had many chances to go looking for Lincoln. My dad was inaugurated on a Thursday, which meant Jackie and I were expected to go to school the very next morning. We were sent to Sidwell Friends School, which isn’t that far from the border of DC and Maryland. According to the White House Chief Usher, this is where the children of all US Presidents are educated, and it ranks among the top ten schools in the entire nation.

Top. Ten.

Not Ten thousand.

**Ten.**

Jackie and I found ourselves attending classes with the children of some of America’s most prominent lawmakers and businesspeople. We weren’t that interested in making friends at the time because we missed our old ones back home. Even so, most kids gravitated towards us whether we liked it or not. Our dad was the leader of the free world, and that meant we were caught in the whirlpool of attention around him.

I guess there were two kids we could tolerate, really. The first was a girl named Chelsea Daniels.[1] Her father was one of the Senators from Maryland. Chelsea was the same age as me, just about thirteen, but you wouldn’t believe me if you saw her for yourself. She was an early bloomer, looked older than her age and was without question the prettiest girl in the school. Chelsea said she was trying to kick start her modelling career, so she often showed up in really expensive clothes and enough makeup to make me wonder how she was still standing upright. For the most part, Jackie hung out with Chelsea. I spent a little more time with the other kid, a boy named Andy Guerra.[2]

Andy was something of a nerd, and that was okay. His dad, Pete, was supposed to be one of the most famous journalists in America. If anyone reading this book is old enough to remember the Robinson Presidency, they might just remember a certain Caucasian man with a scruffy red beard who occasionally graced CNN with his presence. That was Pete Guerra.[3] He’s the one who first broke the news to the world that Soviet submarines were probing the Seikan Tunnel in Japan.

Getting to and from school each day was an adventure and a half. A bulletproof SUV drove my sister and I back and forth from the White House to class each day. This would have been fine if not for the person assigned to our “protective detail.”

You can probably imagine how upset I was when I found out that the same crazy Irish lady was assigned to protect my sister and myself. She and I were already starting off on the wrong foot, and I guess that’s why she insisted on having a sit-down meeting with Jackie and I one day to introduce herself properly.

“My name is Kathleen Walsh.”[4] The agent began as we all sat down together in the Blue Room. “You migh’ hear the other agents call me ‘Nix' once in a while. I’ve been workin’ for the Secret Service for the pas’ two years.”

I folded my arms and didn’t say much. Jackie was curious and asked:

“What did you do before that?”

“I served in the US Army.” Agent Walsh said. “Fought in Afghanistan, I did.”

Now that caused me to sit up in interest. Pretty much everyone in my class back home followed the ill-fated US invasion of Afghanistan. Without thinking, I just kinda blurted out:

“Were you at Kandahar?”

A look flickered across Walsh's face. I knew right away I’d touched a nerve and started to apologize, but the agent did answer:

“Aye, I was there.”

…

The Battle of Kandahar was the first time American and Soviet soldiers came face-to-face and fought. The whole thing was three days long and it was on every TV channel. The only thing our teachers would talk about at school was Kandahar, and it was all our parents talked about, too.

Fifteen thousand Americans lost their lives in that battle. The Soviet Red Army beat us so badly that all US military forces withdrew from Afghanistan less than a month afterward. As for the evil men who masterminded the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, they got the really short end of the stick. The Russians were extremely unhappy to learn that terror groups funded by both the CIA and KGB had gone rogue and were out-of-control. Supposedly, those men were now freezing in a gulag somewhere in Siberia.

But Walsh and the other Americans who fought at Kandahar? Their return home was a muted and sorrowful affair. The United States was humiliated, as were her armed forces. There’s an infamous video of soldiers being pelted with spitballs by an angry crowd when they arrived at JFK airport in New York City. I’m sure Walsh was one of those soldiers who received that particularly hateful welcome.

…

“Aye, I was there.” Agent Walsh admitted. “Looked them communist bastards in the eye, and saw'em kill God-knows how many of my friends.”

“How did you get into the Secret Service?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

The agent swelled with a little pride.

“On that last day in-country, I decided that my buddy's life was worth more than mine.” She said. “I guess somebody up top noticed, cause here I am now.”

The more we chatted with Walsh, the cooler she seemed to be. The woman had fought in a war and did such a good job that the Secret Service approached her about a job. That alone was very impressive. Of course, I was just a kid back then, so my questions for her were unsurprisingly straightforward, simple, and childish:

“Did you ever kill anyone?”

“I put down half a dozen Ruskies in Afghanistan, aye.”

“Did you kill anyone while you were in the Secret Service?”

“No.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“Aye, I always carry one.”

“Have you ever had to shoot it?”

“No.”

“If someone tries to shoot my dad, what will you do?”

“Whatever it takes to keep him safe.” Walsh said. “That’s my duty.”

“Do you think someone might try?”

Agent Walsh folded her arms in thought for a moment before answering.

“Honestly, we think a kidnappin’ attempt is more likely.” She said. “Takin’ the President or a member of his family hostage is a pretty quick way to destroy the country.”

At this, my little sister jumped up and down on the balls of her feet excitedly and declared:

“Oh! Oh! Blake and I took a karate class last year. They taught us how to fight off a kidnapper.”

Agent Walsh raised her eyebrow.

“Okay then.” She replied. “Wanna show me what you’ve got?”

…

That was when I learned the Secret Service was a law enforcement agency, and as such, they have a training facility. On a weekend morning, Walsh took Jackie and I out there for a visit. Sadly, you can’t see this place yourself. It was demolished by the ADVENT regime in 2017, not to mention the fact that here in the modern day, the District of Columbia is something of a no-man's-land between the American War Zone and the Blue Line.[5] Unless you’re a soldier in one of the local combating forces, you’re not getting anywhere near the old Secret Service HQ.

Jackie and I were like tourists in Northern Michigan, gawking at everything with our mouths hanging open. The building had a memorial wall dedicated to the history of the Secret Service, from its founding in 1865 to its many missions, ranging from hunting down counterfeit money to protecting lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Agent Walsh brought us to a wide open room with a wrestling mat on the floor and sparring dummies along one wall. Several other members of the Secret Service welcomed us and stood around to watch as Agent Walsh showed us just how the Presidential protection detail did their work.

“Your father scared the bejeezus outta us on his first day.” Walsh began. “Ya remember when I said we were worried ‘bout kidnappers? Well your old man thought it was a good idea to just walk up to people on the side of the road and shake their hands. Well lemme show ya wha’ happens when ya do that.”

A big, burly agent casually strode towards Walsh and reached out to take her hand in a friendly way. In two fluid movements, she seized his arm in both of her hands, pulled backwards, and used the man's own weight against him. In moments, the other agent was lying on the floor, face-down, with Walsh’s boot pressed firmly against the back of his neck. Jackie squealed with fright and covered her eyes. I couldn’t look away.

“Tha’ coulda been yer dad.” Walsh panted. “See how it only took a few seconds? You really think you can fight off somethin’ like that with whatever you learned in a mall karate shop?”

Jackie shook her head and took a step back, but I was feeling cocky. In hindsight, I think watching people fight just put me in the mood to do the same. When I was a kid, I was also an idiot.

Walsh and her comrades cleared the wrestling mat, then I took my spot opposite Walsh. She cracked her knuckles and said:

“Alright, see if you can get away from me.”

And then she was on me.

If there are any parents reading this book, take my advice: there is nothing wrong with teaching your child how to defend themselves in a fight. However, you need to take the task seriously. Don’t just drop your child off at some dojo in a strip mall and expect them to come home as Kung-fu warriors. Explain the nuance. Talk about context clues and circumstances. Teach your kids how to use their small size to their advantage.

My parents didn’t do any of that, so my “fight” with Agent Walsh lasted the better part of two seconds. I tried to punch her as she approached, but Agent Walsh simply absorbed the blow, wrapped her arms around me, and lifted me over her shoulder. All I could do as she carried me across the room was scream and beat my fists on her back as she carried me away, just like she’d done on Inauguration Day.

“Yeah, easiest kidnappin’ ever.” Walsh said as she put me down. “And that’s why you need us to guard you for the next four years. Maybe more.”

…

Walsh wasn’t kidding around when she talked about guarding us. Everywhere the Presidential family went, Agent Walsh was close behind. Like I said, her specific assignment was protecting Mom, Jackie, and I. The First Lady didn’t seem to mind having Walsh tail her every move, but for Jackie and I, it got old very fast. Soon enough, we were looking for ways to escape from Agent Walsh and her ever-present gaze.

At first it was easy.

Jackie and I decided we wanted to see the fountains at the World War 2 memorial so we put on our coats and simply walked out the back door. Looking back now, I’m amazed we got as far from the White House as we did. The two of us crossed the South Lawn and almost reached the road before a pair of dumbfounded Secret Service agents called for backup and chased us down.

That’s how we found out we couldn’t go anywhere we wanted anymore. If I tried to leave the White House for any reason, Walsh was there to turn me back.

“If it’s not on the First Family’s itinerary, yer not going.” Walsh would say.

I was getting really frustrated now. Back home in Detroit, my parents would let me and my sister go out on the town all the time. As long as we took a flip phone with us and checked in regularly, dad never had a problem with us leaving the house. Agent Walsh was a completely different case.

As spring came around, I started getting serious about my attempts to get out of the White House and have some time to myself. Andy and Chelsea, two of our friends from the new school, were making plans to go see the new _Star Trek_ movie in the theater, and they wanted me to come along. This kickstarted a couple of misadventures…

…

_March 18, 2005_

My parents knew full well that my sister and I were itching to see the new _Star Trek_ film. Everywhere we went in the White House, Jackie and I turned on a television and tuned it to a channel playing commercials for the movie. On the Friday that was also opening day, I decided to just try the simplest plan. Jackie and I put our coats on, walked right up to dad (who was having a talk with some Cabinet members in the Oval Office) and we said:

“Hey Dad, we’re going to the theater with some friends. Can we have the phone?”

Over half a century later, as I write this, I still can’t believe it actually worked. It was just like we were suddenly back home in Detroit. Dad absent-mindedly reached into his pocket, produced a flip phone and handed it to me without ever taking his eyes off the Secretary of War.

Jackie and I didn’t wait. We were gone in a flash, racing towards the north entrance. Our plan was to use the trees in Lafayette Square to hide from the Secret Service, but we never got that far. Holding Jackie’s hand, I started to lead the way across Pennsylvania Avenue when adult hands seized us from behind!

“An’ jus' where do ya think you’re going!?” Agent Walsh was practically shouting in my ear.

“Going to see a movie!” I snapped back. “What’s it to you?”

As she dragged us (literally) back to the White House, Walsh continued admonishing us.

“So ya numbskulls were gonna walk five miles to the AMC, where any old Joe coulda plucked you off a corner. Then you were gonna sit in a dark room with about two hundred strangers for a couple ‘a hours, just waiting for foreign agents to get set up by the exit for ya!? Am I missin’ sumthin’ or are ya just feckin' eejiots?”

Walsh took away our flip phone and, as far as I know, didn’t give it back to my dad until the day he left office.

…

_March 19, 2005_

Chelsea and Andy were really upset when Jackie and I no-showed for the movie. They told us over the phone that they were thinking about seeing the movie by themselves, but I insisted that we could get out of the White House the next evening. I had a plan.

Truthfully, I spent most of the night in my room plotting out the great escape. I filled up half a notebook with “WTD’s” That’s short for “What to do.” What to do if Walsh is in this room? What to do if this door is being watched, things like that. When I woke up in the morning, I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. That’s how hard I was planning.

So that afternoon, Jackie and I tried to smuggle ourselves out of the White House. There were a number of large boxes in the East Wing labelled “Department of War” and Jackie and I found one that was open. We crawled inside and shut it on ourselves. Our plan was simple: I’d used the internet to look up the Department of War and found out they had an office in the city. Someone would carry the boxes there, Jackie and I would crawl out, then walk to the movie theatre and meet our friends.

Well, the plan worked… for about twenty seconds.

Just like I predicted, some workers came to take the boxes out of the White House. The guy who grabbed ours let out a straining noise and said:

“Jeez, the War Secretary must be installing a bowling alley. This thing’s fulla bowling balls.”

At once, I could hear another person reply.

“What are you talking about?” Said the voice of Vice President MacDonald. “These boxes are supposed to be empty.”

My heart sank. Then there was a lot of straining, followed by the sound of duct tape being cut by a knife. Light filled our little space and suddenly, my sister and I found ourselves looking up at the Vice President, several workmen, and a very perplexed-looking Agent Walsh.

“Well, feck me in the arse.” Agent Walsh gasped. “Never thought I’d see the day when a Trojan Horse got into the White House.”

…

_March 20, 2005_

The next day was a Sunday, and our final chance to get out of the White House and into a movie theatre. Now I did have a backup plan for if the first two failed, but there was a real hitch: It would only get me out of the building and not my sister, so we had to play our cards very carefully. By pure good luck, dad wasn’t in the White House that day. He’d gone off to play golf with several members of Congress. It was just myself, Jackie, and mom. We put the backup of my backup plan into action…

Ever since I was a small child, I suffered from a mild allergy to latex, a chemical produced from the sap of rubber trees. The trees themselves occur naturally on Earth, but rubber and latex can be found or produced elsewhere in the Galaxy. Latex is a very common chemical found in many products all over the Galaxy. It’s in clothing, makeup, children’s toys, medical equipment, and even certain types of food. Fortunately, my allergies were mild, so I could avoid having a medical emergency on my own without help from my parents.

But that also means I can induce one on command.

My sister wasn’t allergic to latex, but I could account for that detail and plan around it.

My little sister checked all of her makeup to see if any of it had latex as an ingredient. The next morning, we were in business. Just after breakfast, our mom asked what Jackie and I were up to today. My sibling raised her makeup carry-case and squealed

“Makeover!”

Then she dragged me away by the arm. I was pretending to protest and complain while Secret Service agent Walsh followed us with an amused smile. We went to my sister’s room and she set to work, declaring that she was going to fix everything that was wrong with me and make me into the most handsome First Boy who ever lived. She started to paint my face with some sort of cream that girls use on their skin all the time…

Now here is Jericho’s honest truth: When I touch or eat anything containing latex, my skin breaks out in really painful hives.

That’s all that happens.

Nothing else.

_Agent Walsh didn’t know that._

When I grabbed my throat and started making choking sounds, Agent Walsh burst into the room and cried out:

“Wha’s goin’ on!?”

I fell over backwards, thrashing about and choking. Right about then was when my skin actually erupted and I started crying out in _very real pain and agony._ Jackie grabbed her own wrist dramatically and screamed:

“Oh no! Latex! We’re allergic!! We’re gonna die!”

And then she keeled over as well. We were both pretending to be in the throes of anaphylaxis, which basically means we refused to talk because we “couldn’t breathe.” Jackie was doing a decent impression of an allergy she didn’t have. I’d only had a single night to coach her.

Just as we hoped she would, Agent Walsh called for an ambulance. Multiple Secret Service agents picked us up and carried us to the north entrance. As we were loaded in the back, someone shouted:

“George Washington University Hospital!”

“Wait!” cried an unfamiliar voice.

Then I felt a stabbing pain in my leg unlike anything I’d ever felt before! I dropped the act entirely, sitting bolt-upright and screaming like there was no tomorrow. A second later, the same thing happened to Jackie. Then the drugs took their effect, and I don’t really remember what happened next.

What happened was that one of the paramedics had the presence of mind to notice that I was having a very real allergic reaction, and they immediately assumed the same thing was happening to Jackie. So the ambulance crew deployed a special kind of medicine that helps an allergic person fight off a severe reaction… a kind of reaction that neither of us were having.

We totally overdosed on some hardcore drugs.

We really… _really_ needed to go to the hospital now.

And I think it goes without saying, but yes… we missed the movie again. When Agent Walsh came to pick us up from the hospital, she said:

“Ne’er thought I’d see the day when someone used an ambulance as a getaway car. Oh well, c’mon. Your next Trojan Horse is waitin’ outside.”

…

After this, Agent Walsh declared Jackie and I to be “flight risks” and _even more_ Secret Service agents were assigned to “protect” us. On top of all this, the Secret Service actually started calling me “Trojan.” Confused, I looked up the word on the internet and eventually read through the Iliad, a Human myth about Trojan warriors, who were defeated when their enemies hid inside of a thing called a Trojan Horse. I took the nickname as a direct insult from the Secret Service, but thanks to Agent Walsh, it’s followed me into my sixties and now I’ve just learned to live with it.

I spent most of the spring working on one escape project or another. That movie was only in theaters for about a month, so it wasn’t really my prime goal. After a while, it was a matter of pride… and forty years later, when we were fighting side-by-side in the Second Hyperspace War, Walsh did say she enjoyed playing cat and mouse with me.

It wasn’t all animosity. Walsh and I kind of got along. We were “frenemies,” and sometimes we did get along well enough that we didn’t cause trouble for my dad or anyone else. There’s one such occasion where we got along I can remember well, mainly because it was at the beginning of a series of events that would have great consequences throughout my life and for much of Human history…

…

_April 19, 2005_

_Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States of America_

It was the tenth anniversary of a terrorist attack in the city of Oklahoma, so naturally it was a time of mourning and remembrance. The local government organized 24 days of activities that included the National Week of Hope. My dad liked this idea so much that he instructed everybody in the White House to conduct their own memorial, paying respects to the victims of the attack.

My mom, the First Lady, gathered up several creative young men and women who worked in the White House and they fashioned a simple church bell, complete with a mechanism to ring it. Mom took it into the White House lawn and, in full view of the press and news cameras, rang the bell one-hundred-sixty-eight times. Once for every person killed in the attack.

On the last day of the Week of Hope, my dad told my mom, my sister and I to dress in our Sunday best. We flew from Washington to Oklahoma on Air Force One and joined in the memorial service. It happened at the Oklahoma City Memorial. Built on the site where the attack happened, the memorial featured a reflecting pool and a large grassy field where over a hundred empty chairs stood in haunting rows. Thousands of people gathered here, milling around the pool and keeping a respectful distance from the empty chairs. They were reserved for the innocents who lost their lives in the attack. A priest led the gathered crowd in a short prayer before asking us all to share a moment of silence.

One by one, politicians and dignitaries gave speeches about the attack and its aftermath. My sister and I were both babies when this happened, so we knew little to nothing about it. We sat quietly next to our parents while Agent Walsh, in a moment of unexpected altruism, whispered a short history lesson into our ears. Personally, that meant a lot to me. Agent Walsh was most certainly an antagonistic force towards me for part of my life, but she wasn’t a bad person. She could be downright helpful sometimes.

…

Once the service was over, my dad insisted on staying at the memorial for a few extra minutes. He wanted to spend some time talking with people who survived the attack. While Oklahoma government officials made this happen, Jackie and I got to sit down on the southern side of the reflecting pool and just hang out for a moment. The two of us weren’t very idle. Jackie and I were scanning the crowd across the water, taking in faces and outfits. Occasionally, we’d point at someone and share a comment or a laugh. Finally, Agent Walsh asked what we were doing.

“People watching!” Jackie replied. “Big bro and I did it all the time back home.”

“There’s a big park in Detroit.” I explained, “Just ten a minute walk away from the river. There’s always a lot of people there, and some of them are really strange. Jax and I like to check them out.”

Agent Walsh flinched with confusion when I called my sister by a shortened version of her nickname, but shrugged it off and said:

“Yeh know, people-watchin’ is a skill we need in the Secret Service. When yer older’ you consider joinin’ up.”

The agent folded her arms and took a step closer to us.

“Okay, kids. Tell me what ya see, and I’ll give ya the Secret Service appraisal.”

Jackie went first. She pointed to a heavyset man with a long beard and a leather jacket.

“The dude looks like a retired Santa Claus!” Jackie declared.

Agent Walsh narrowed her eyes at the strange man for a moment, then said:

“We’ve seen his type before. Might be involved in some small-time crime. See that bulge on the left side of his coat? He’s got a concealed weapon. Probably a big pistol or a sawn-off shotgun.”

Jackie and I were left stunned by this pronouncement. We both leaned forward, trying to see and understand whatever the agent had. Meanwhile, Walsh drew her walkie-talkie out of the inside pocket of her jacket and briefly spoke into it, telling someone to keep an eye on the man Jackie spotted.

“A’ight Trojan.” Walsh looked down at me. “You’re next. What kinda person does a people-watcher like you think is interestin’?”

I scanned the crowd, then nodded my head towards a woman who looked incredibly angry. She was stomping across the grounds towards a parked police car.

“That lady’s gonna cause trouble.” I said.

“For herself, not us.” Walsh commented. “We see her like once in a while. She’s the ‘I-want-to-speak-to-your-manager’ lady. Every city’s got one.”

Jackie and I both burst out laughing.

“Why for herself though?” Jackie asked.

“Have you seen wha’ happens when _anyone_ walks up to a cop and says ‘I wanna talk to yer boss?’” Agent Walsh replied. “It ain’t pretty.”

Finally, I looked around the crowd once more and spotted another strange person.

“Okay Walsh.” I said. “You’ve gotta agree with me… that guy’s just plain creepy.”

I raised one finger and pointed across the pool. Jackie and Agent Walsh both followed the direction I aimed and saw a curious sight.

There was a man sitting on a park bench near the northwest corner of the reflecting pool. About twenty-four or twenty-five years old, he had messy, unkempt hair and gave off the general impression of a person who did not take care of himself. The man folded his hands in his lap and turned his head very slowly, keeping his gaze locked in one specific direction. He was watching someone. This strange man was observing a group of people on the far side of the memorial. In the middle of that group, my dad was shaking hands with several firefighters.

Walsh locked eyes on the strange man and then muttered under her breath:

“Look away, boy. Stop staring. Look at something else. Longer you stare at the President, the more suspicious you get.”

Two minutes crawled by. The strange man continued staring at my dad. He didn’t do anything else. He just stared. Agent Walsh pulled out her radio a second time and reported the stranger to her superiors. Someone called back and said the Secret Service would figure out his identity and run a background check. Then she knelt down next to me and said:

“Yer right, kid. He’s creepy.”

* * *

[1] Chelsea Daniels (1993-2037) survived the Conquest of Earth. She married Thomas Hutch, a high-ranking member of the ADVENT Coalition government, and remained loyal to him and the collaborationist forces up until the Liberation of Earth. After the war, Chelsea and her husband were both arrested by the UN government and charged with “Treason against the Human Race.” She and her husband were both convicted and executed by firing squad on April 1, 2037. Chelsea and her husband were posthumously pardoned by Secretary-General Pascal Etienne when he assumed office in 2066, alongside some one million collaborationists, traitors, and enemies of Humanity from the Second Hyperspace War. She is survived by her son, Indy Hutch. (Now a professor at Yutaka Yamamoto University on the planet Terra Nova)

[2] Andy Guerra (1995-2035) survived the Conquest of Earth and lived in the New Haven megacity for twenty years. During the Occupation of Earth, Andy was a collaborator, working as a government-sanctioned journalist. He produced and distributed ADVENT propaganda videos across the internet throughout most of the Second Hyperspace War. According to the Global Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Andy was lured into a Gene Therapy Clinic and murdered by ADVENT alongside approximately 4 million others during the final hours before the Battle for Earth. On January 1, 2066, Andy Guerra was posthumously pardoned by Secretary-General Pascal Etienne and is no longer considered to be a traitor.

[3] Pete Guerra (1974-2022) was an American journalist. He specialized in political news and broke some of the most well-known stories of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. He survived the Conquest of Earth and joined the Resistance, fighting with a cell based in the southern US. Pete was killed in action on August 17, 2022.

[4] Kathleen Walsh (1979-2049) Was a member of the American Resistance and later XCOM and the Stormbreakers during the Second Hyperspace War. She fought beside me in both the Battle for Earth and the War in Heaven.

[5] The Blue Line is an imaginary line drawn on maps to demarcate the end of the UN Military Control Zone and the beginning of the American War Zone. Its location tends to fluctuate with the movement of UN troops across the North American continent.


	4. Irresistible

Chapter Four

Irresistible

_“For the love of a woman, some men will do anything. After today I cannot be convinced that this is, or ever was, a good thing.”_

_\- Trevor MacDonald, Vice President of the United States, 2005 to 2006_

======

Kyle Bradshaw is one of the most consequential people in history. In the course of just three seconds, he permanently altered the course of three lives to the point where the aftershocks of his actions are still being felt almost a century later. Without him, there would be no Stormbreakers, no Jericho, no Battle for Earth, and quite possibly no Humanity after 2036. If one single person can be living proof of the Butterfly Effect, proof of the sheer scale of Akira Robinson’s actions, this man is that proof.

To understand how Kyle Bradshaw so radically altered the course of history, we will need to go back… _to a Cosplay Convention._

…

I know that a significant number of non-Humans read my books, so allow me to include this explanation for Levakians, Kelt, Micore, Amadii, Vanians, and any other species whose culture lacks this particular phenomenon:

Cosplay is the act of dressing up as a favorite fictional character, be they from movies, books, video games, or some other entertainment medium. Creating these costumes is often a labor of love, a hobby for many, and a passion for some. Aside from my own species, Partogans and Assurians are also known to engage in Cosplay from time to time.

In the years before World War III, Cosplay Conventions were events where hundreds or sometimes thousands of people gathered to show off the costumes they created. They would praise and critique one another’s work for days on end, all the while meeting up and hanging out with like-minded folks who enjoyed the same works of fiction.

Kyle Bradshaw was an avid member of this community, yet he was an outlier within their ranks. He was born and raised in Arcadia Bay,[1] a small town in Oregon, and lived with his parents. He loved science fiction shows like _Star Trek_ and regularly Cosplayed as characters from those movies. Unfortunately, Bradshaw had a long-running streak of anti-social behavior. When he was in school, his parents received regular complaints about the rude and abrasive ways their son spoke to others. He had trouble making friends and became a loner.

All of Bradshaw's real “friends" were people he met online. Other loners like him who either couldn’t or wouldn’t make connections with people in real life. They would spend hours upon hours in virtual chat rooms, badmouthing their physical neighbors and discussing their favorite shows.

I am able to reconstruct and chronicle Bradshaw’s movements using records left over from the FBI investigation into his actions. Because Bradshaw was murdered by the ADVENT Coalition during the genocidal campaign preceding the Battle for Earth, the UN Truth and Reconciliation Commission also keeps a file on him. These combined files were quite large, so I had to recruit several members of my family to sift through all of the data. I owe a debt of gratitude to Varian and Chris for their contributions to this section. Based on our findings, this is roughly what happened:

…

_July 10, 2004_

_Los Angeles, California, United States of America_

On that cozy Saturday morning, Kyle logged onto a web forum he frequented often and declared he was heading to the Cosplay Convention to pick up chicks. He dressed in the uniform of a “Starfleet officer" (a character from _Star Trek_ ) and then traveled to the event via car.

Approximately 3500 young people were at the Convention hall that day. They wore an incredible variety of costumes, dressed up as wizards, space rangers,[2] pirates, magical girls, knights, vikings, samurai, rock stars, heroes, villains, spies, explorers, superheroes, and so many other characters from big and small screens alike. As of the publication of this book, in the year 2084, about 50 of these people are still alive; half of them agreed to interviews with either myself, my family, or the Truth Commission.

According to witness reports and the FBI files, Kyle flitted from one group of fans to the next. He tended to loiter and not say much, instead choosing to stare at girls and young women with an expression that made many people uncomfortable. Once Kyle wore out his welcome he would move on. Plenty of people who were there that day suggested that Kyle was very awkward and while he did try to strike up a chat with many women, he seemed unable to keep a conversation going for more than a minute. At a minimum, Kyle struck out with at least fifteen women of varying ages and fandom, ranging all the way from Potterheads[3] to his fellow Trekkies.[4]

Just after lunchtime, several hundred people gathered in the auditorium, where a famous voiceover artist was giving a workshop class on how to record dialogue. Kyle just barely managed to squeeze himself into the cramped room before the place was at capacity. All the way in the back of the room, Kyle had a very poor view of the workshop. He found himself wedged between two people: a teen boy dressed up as a roman gladiator, and a teen girl wearing a black Gothic dress.

The “gladiator" was Carlos Vasquez. He would go on to become a veteran of the Second Hyperspace War; having fought in both the Battle for Earth and the War in Heaven. Major Vasquez testified to what happened next:

The girl in the Gothic dress shifted on her feet and accidentally bumped into Kyle, causing the Starfleet badge on his uniform to fall to the floor. Moving quickly, the girl stooped down and picked it up, handing it back to him. When she and Kyle locked eyes, the girl hesitated as though the words got lost on the way to her mouth.

“Oh… uh… hey there.” She breathed. “You dropped this.”

Kyle took the badge back and the girl looked away. Kyle himself did not break his gaze. According to Carlos, Kyle spent the next two or three minutes just staring at this girl, looking up and down every inch of her body. The Major was convinced that the young woman was fully aware of the fact that she was being ogled. In fact, Major Vasquez said this in his testimony:

“That Bradshaw creep was pretty much breathing down the back of her neck, letting his eyes roam all over her. She definitely knew what was up and was playin’ along, messing with him. Her face and neck were all red and flushed, and she put her arms together in that way that pushed her breasts up. She was definitely puttin’ on a show for him.”

Eventually, the workshop ended and the people in the hall began moving about, heading towards the shops and stalls. Before he lost track of the pair, Major Vasquez witnessed the first conversation the couple had:

“Who are you?” The girl asked. Kyle became flustered and stammered in reply,

“Uh… Kyle. I’m Kyle.”

“Huh? No, no, no.” The girl said. “I mean your costume! Who are you supposed to be?”

Kyle let out a nervous laugh and then did an impersonation of a character from _Star Trek_ :

“Travis, take us to warp!”

The Gothic girl laughed very enthusiastically. Kyle’s follow-up statement came with a little added confidence.

“It’s not as good as Wednesday Addams, I know, but I swear I’m trying.”

The girl startled and laughed again.

“No way!” She said. “You’re the first one who got it right! I am Wednesday Addams! Everyone around here keeps saying I’m that Abby broad from the _NCIS_ show!”

Kyle laughed and said,

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Wednesday.”

The Gothic girl gave Kyle a playful slap on the wrist and finally gave her name.

“Come on, man. My name’s Irani. Irani Sanbrook.”

Major Vasquez lost track of the couple after this, which provides a convenient narrative break for me to add in a crucial explanation:

_Irani Sanbrook is not a real person. She never was._

Kyle Bradshaw left the scene in the arms of the Paradox.

…

Nobukazu, Chris, Chihiro and I spent weeks diving through all of the records surrounding Kyle and his troubled life. It was clear to us that the FBI had been extremely diligent in their work, creating an utterly massive paper trail for us to follow. Himawari and her child Varian proved to be crucial to our efforts. Together, they were able to piece together the path Akira Robinson took to end up in that convention next to Kyle Bradshaw:

About four days before the convention began, US law enforcement recorded a sudden rash of calls from concerned citizens in California, Nevada, and Arizona. All of these people reported seeing the same thing, a UFO traveling from East to West. Several airplane pilots also reported seeing a UFO. The most detailed account comes from a fighter pilot doing a routine patrol around Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.

Captain Stanley Greer reported seeing a “four-engine vehicle" with white paint on its dorsal side and black paint on its ventral side. He described it as a delta-wing aircraft flying at high altitude. When he called it in, he claimed he had seen Buran, the Soviet space shuttle. However, Greer retracted this claim within the next six hours and remained convinced until his dying day that he saw some kind of alien craft.

Today, the answer is obvious to any of us with half-a-century of hindsight. This UFO was the _Ark Angel,_ the timeship used by Akira Robinson, the Paradox. Considering the terrain of the southwestern United States, it is very reasonable to assume she landed in the vicinity of Death Valley and then travelled to Los Angeles by some other means.

As for her alias, we’ve had to engage in some speculation. Historians who specialize in the Paradox have proposed many possible explanations, but I believe Chris “History Dude” Wright may have happened upon the correct answer. He suggests that “Irani Sanbrook" is one of the very first false identities Akira made for herself. He points out that the persona used a very thin disguise and that the name itself is simply an anagram of Akira’s name.

“Clearly a disguise so weak was made by an amateur.” Chris suggested. “I think the only reason Akira continues to use that particular alias is because it was never unmasked.”

…

The next time Irani Sanbrook and Kyle Bradshaw were seen was outside the convention hall as the con closed for the night. Witnesses said that Bradshaw kept one arm draped over Irani's shoulder and was steering her where he wanted to go. Irani reportedly encouraged him, asking things like “where next" and “what do you wanna do now?”

They went to the same restaurant as many of the other convention attendees and shared a meal. A few witnesses reported seeing them together. At one point during the evening, a man who’d attended the convention earlier in the day (and was still wearing his costume) tried to poach Irani. He placed a big glass of beer down on the table in front of her, in spite of all witnesses suggesting that Irani was just 18 or 19 years old, and thus too young to drink alcohol.

“Hey little baby.” The stranger said in a smooth voice. “This guy's boring you, isn’t he?”

Kyle became upset, balling up his fists and making threatening gestures. The stranger carried on.

“Come on, let’s get outta here.” The guy said. “I've got so much more going on. I work for NASA. You wanna see my spaceship?”

To the surprise of many witnesses, Kyle now directed his angry expression towards Irani, as though he was silently threatening to retaliate if she even considered leaving him. Irani saw this and said to the strange man:

“Look, dude. I've seen a lot of spaceships before… I’ll bet yours is nothing to phone home about.”

This took all of the wind out of the man’s sails, and he gave up his attempt. After the interloper left, Irani jokingly chastised Kyle about not standing up for her. Witnesses say she was trying to make a joke, but Kyle appeared to take her words seriously.

A couple hours later, the pair turned up at a drive-in theater, where they watched a movie about a spy trying to assassinate some rival. There was a witness in the car next to them, and she spoke to us on condition of anonymity. This is what transpired:

Kyle parked his car with the windows down, allowing the witness, who was alone, to hear the entirety of his conversation with Irani. The witness admitted she was very curious about the couple and paid more attention to them than to the movie, keeping her own car seat leaned back so that her head was out of view.

“You don’t seem like the kind of girl who watches movies like this.” Kyle began.

“Have you seen Tom Cruise?” Irani sighed, “Oh, man… he can tie me up and throw me in the trunk whenever he wants.”

“I thought he was the bad guy.” Kyle chuckled, gesturing to the movie.

On screen, a hitman played by the actor Irani mentioned was forcing a taxi driver to load a body into his car.

“Think I care?” Irani’s voice fluttered. “I’m all worked up just thinking about him.”

Kyle laughed.

“You must have that thing for kidnappers… what’s it called? Something syndrome.”

“Stockholm.” Irani replied dreamily. “And not just kidnappers, you know. More like… troublemakers in general.”

Kyle paused for a moment. Irani seemed to read the subtle change in his mood because she added:

“I don’t want someone… you know… _boring.”_

Kyle got defensive.

“I’m not boring.” He said.

“I could tell." Irani’s voice got softer, as though she had moved closer to Kyle. “I saw the way you moved when that creep came over to me. You looked like you wanted to beat him up or something.”

“I would have.” Kyle sounded like he was talking to himself. “I totally would have.”

Irani seemed to be egging him on, encouraging Kyle to follow this train of thought.

“You must get real angry when people mess with your stuff, huh?”

“You’re damn right.” Kyle growled. “They got no business messin’ with what's mine.”

“So, what’s gonna happen the next time you see me with some other guy?”

At this point, the witness’ curiosity was so piqued that she dared to peek up from her reclined car seat. She claims to have seen Kyle withdraw a handgun from the armrest and show it to Irani, who reacted with awe. She ran one hand along the barrel, jaw open, before casting her eyes back up at Kyle.

“None of my other boyfriends owned a gun.” She whispered.

When Kyle realized Irani was impressed, he was emboldened. He aimed the pistol towards the movie screen and said:

“Some guy ever looks at my girl the wrong way and blam! End of the road for him.”

Irani slowly nestled herself into Kyle’s arms, placing one hand on his chest.

“I hope the girl you’re talking about is me.” Irani’s voice was even softer now. “I’d do anything for a guy like you.”

According to the witness, the conversation ended here. She says she’d guessed exactly what was going to happen next, but was too frightened to roll up her window, lest her eavesdropping be discovered. She listened to what she described as “an intense encounter" for about fifteen minutes. When they finished, Kyle turned on his car and drove away. The witness caught a brief glimpse of Irani Sanbrook in the passenger seat. She was slumped over and appeared to be semiconscious, but satisfied.

…

FBI, GTRC, and my own investigations have put together a very rough timeline of the Sanbrook-Bradshaw relationship. The important takeaway is that Kyle’s behavior and lifestyle underwent a radical change after his encounter with the individual now known as the Paradox. This train of thought led us to a very important question:

 _Why did Akira Robinson use seduction to get Kyle Bradshaw to do her bidding?_ It is a well-known fact that during this time period, Akira was the most powerful Psionic in the Galaxy. She could have placed Kyle under Mind Control at any moment and achieved her goals with far less effort than other means. Tempting him with her body was not necessary at all… at least, that’s what we thought at first.

Himawari’s old friend Chris was just as confused when we came across this information. He has written more about the Paradox than any other 2HW historian, and even he struggled to find an explanation for the sudden change in Akira’s modus operandi. For days, we were stumped, until my grandchild Varian found a single piece of paper that caused all of the puzzle pieces to fall neatly into place…

Buried deep within the paperwork Igarashi gave me was an official document from the United States government. It was an executive order signed by my own father during the sixth year of his presidency. It was a simple order to declassify and make public all secret government files regarding the “Discovery of Element #115"

E-115 is Elerium, a superheavy element best known for being a conductor of Psionic energy. The only natural deposit of Elerium on Earth was in Montana. A secret government operation mined the vein until it was completely tapped out in 1962. Once Varian found the declassification order, we went hunting for any and all documents the US government had on the subject. Within hours, we discovered a Senate Intelligence Committee report about Psionics, which included a plan to fully integrate telepaths into the US Army as soon as 1995. (A plan that never came to fruition, possibly due to Akira's interference)

The United States government was fully aware of the existence of the Gift and had basic working knowledge of Psionics as far back as 1962. With this knowledge in hand, Chris Wright extrapolated the following explanation:

Akira knew that the WW3-era US government would be able to detect and investigate Psionic activities within their own borders, so she made a point of avoiding the use of her Gift whenever practical. It is possible she came close to giving herself away during the 2004 Election, and was attempting to play it safe. In the case of Kyle Bradshaw, the aftermath of his deeds and Akira’s subsequent disappearance suggests that she always intended for him to survive. If Akira used telepathy such as Mind Control against Kyle, FBI investigators would have recognized it immediately and taken action to track down Akira. To preserve secrecy, Akira seduced Kyle instead, using the lure of sex to get him to do her bidding. This gave Kyle a powerful motive to do what he did, and the eyes of the law never strayed away from him.

…

California state records show that Irani Sanbrook lived in a cheap apartment complex on the outskirts of Los Angeles. There is no surviving security camera footage from that place or time period, so we have no way to know how much time Akira Robinson actually spent there. What we do know is that Kyle Bradshaw became a very frequent visitor after meeting the love of his life.

The only surviving neighbor told us that Bradshaw and Sanbrook appeared to be “your ordinary young couple in the honeymoon phase.” They watched movies and partied long into the night, had loud and/or chaotic sexual encounters, and got into arguments that nearly always ended with Kyle storming out of the apartment before Irani ran after him, apologizing profusely and promising a lot of things.

The only thing that struck the neighbor as odd was that when Kyle wasn’t around, Irani’s apartment was as quiet as the grave, suggesting to us that nobody was home. It would often be this way for long stretches of time.

The neighbor also took note of the rather lopsided dynamic of the Sanbrook-Bradshaw relationship. Over time, it became clear that Irani (Akira) was ceding a lot of power and control to Kyle. While there were never any signs of abuse or neglect, it was clear to all who observed the couple that Kyle was running the show and Irani was just along for the ride.

That was, until the middle of January in the year 2005.

The neighbor called police in the middle of the night to report a domestic disturbance in Irani’s apartment. She and Kyle were having a very intense argument, and noises through the walls suggested the couple had come to blows. Irani threw Kyle out of her apartment and declared that “we are over!” Kyle tried to force his way back into the apartment and had to be dragged away by the police.

Even though Irani had very clearly dumped him, Kyle seemed to be obsessed with winning her back. He showed up outside the apartment building every day. He stalked Irani as she went to and from wherever she went each day. He slipped notes under the door, and left approximately 750 messages on Irani’s answering machine, many of which threatened Irani with violence if she didn’t do “as she was told.”

In that time period, law enforcement had few options for dealing with a person stalking their ex. Here in 2084, far more actions could have been taken, but there was little the police could do until the final week of June in 2006, when both Irani and Kyle suddenly vanished off the face of the earth.

Irani Sanbrook was never seen again. Kyle would turn up at Arlington National Cemetery, near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where he would change the course of my own life forever.

In the aftermath of Kyle’s actions, Federal and state law enforcement found Irani's apartment and broke into it. The woman herself was nowhere to be seen, yet her home was a treasure trove of evidence that would put Kyle Bradshaw in jail for the rest of his life. The FBI would eventually conclude that Kyle had murdered Irani and buried her somewhere in the Nevada desert. It should be noted that Irani’s body was never actually found, owing to the fact that Akira Robinson had shed the false identity and moved on to her next objective.

Irani’s apartment was decorated with anything and everything that celebrated the most infamous criminals in history. Pictures of serial killers, kidnappers, theives, and rapists adorned the walls. Her bookshelf was filled with biographies of the worst Humankind has to offer. Her bedroom contained a life-sized poster of Lee Harvey Oswald taped to the ceiling above the bed, and a biography of John Hinckley Jr. was found on the nightstand.

The FBI immediately assumed that Kyle Bradshaw was attempting to emulate Irani’s personal “heroes" in an attempt to win her back. What he did on July 4th, 2006 would burn his name into history books forever…

* * *

[1] Arcadia Bay used to be a town located near Mount Mazama, whose crater lake was the site of a major battle during the Second Hyperspace War. The fortress of the Chosen Warlock is located on Wizard Island, in the middle of Mazama’s crater lake. The town of Arcadia Bay itself was destroyed by a freak weather phenomenon on October 11, 2013 and never rebuilt. In the modern day, the ruins of Arcadia Bay are a haven for members of the Cult of Jericho, who are reportedly searching the surrounding area for Psionic energy.

[2] In an unusual twist, the Space Rangers are now an official branch of the Armed Forces of the United Nations of Earth. The Space Ranger Corps was founded 2068 after the breaking up of XCOM by Secretary-General Pascal Etienne.

[3] Potterheads: Humans who identify themselves as loyal fans of the “Harry Potter” multimedia franchise.

[4] Trekkies: Humans who identify themselves as loyal fans of the “ _Star Trek_ ” multimedia franchise.


	5. The Girl in Blue

Chapter Five

The Girl in Blue

_“Blake Robinson once gave up his old life to come find me. I wouldn’t dare call myself his friend unless I was ready and willing to do the same for him someday.”_

_\- Chihiro “Blue Dragon” Tachibana, Stormbreaker, 2012 to 2036_

======

While my sister and I were settling into our new lives in Washington, my dad’s Presidency hit the ground running. His Administration was barely five months old and yet it was already being defined by a foreign policy triumph.

For several decades beforehand, there was a conflict between the Soviet Union and Japan. I’ve already discussed the USSR in an earlier chapter, so now let’s focus on the other party. Japan is an archipelago of approximately six-thousand-five-hundred islands in the western reaches of the Pacific Ocean. These islands range in size from four huge landmasses to many thousands of insignificant rocks. During my youth, about one-hundred million people called this place their home. In the present day, there are about fifty million Humans and some ten million non-Humans living in Japan.[1]

As for the conflict…

About fifty years before I was born, there was a war between the Soviet Union and Japan. It happened right as the Japanese Empire was being defeated and dismantled by its enemies. Because the Japanese military committed a long list of atrocities during this war, very little mercy was shown. When the smoke cleared, the Soviet Red Army occupied some of the northernmost islands in the Japanese Archipelago and refused to withdraw from them.

Over the next half-century, Japan and Russia continued to argue about who was the rightful owner of these islands. Their location in the Pacific Ocean was quite crucial, after all. A naval force stationed there could either guarantee or deprive Russia’s ability to access the northern Pacific. By the time my dad was running for President, the United States and Japan had become quite friendly with one another, creating a serious problem for Russia.

The two nations were as different as possible. American and Japanese people spoke different languages, wore different clothes, ate different food, as well as having different cultures, religions, and values. But at the end of the day, the two nations shared a common enemy: The Soviet Union. The US and USSR were superpowers, competing for global dominance; and Japan’s rapidly expanding economic power was making them into a serious contender once more.

In Europe, a continent to America’s east, the Soviet Union was dealt a terrible blow about ten years before my Dad entered the White House. Several countries who were once Russia’s allies went through a series of revolutions. Russia’s sphere of influence shrank as once loyal allies abandoned the Russian-led Warsaw Pact, seeking closer ties to NATO,[2] an alliance led by the United States. Then, my dad took things even further.

With Congress’ permission, my dad signed a treaty that created a formal alliance between the United States and Japan. Now our two nations would stand united against any future power play by the Soviets. Of course, I was too young to understand any of this at the time. The only indication I got that something was going on was when my mom came into my bedroom one morning carrying a formal suit, tailored specifically for preteen boys.

This is the very last thing most kids want to see.

…

_May 6, 2005_

_Sidwell Friends School, District of Columbia, United States of America_

“Don’t look now, Blake.” Jackie said. “Andy’s dad is moving like the devil’s after him.”

Our classmate looked really flustered as his father outpaced him, coming our way at a fast clip. Pete Guerra waved his arm to a nearby white van and a camera crew got out. The letters CNN were plastered in red across their equipment.

“Walsh!” I called out.

Agent Walsh arrived in a swish of red hair. She threw out her arms to shield Jackie and I from the news team as we started to make the mad dash from the Presidential Limo to the school entrance. Pete Guerra aimed his microphone underneath Walsh’s armpit and signaled his team.

“Go in three, two… Blake and Jaqueline Robinson, Pete Guerra from CNN News! Do you have a minute?”

“We’re late to class.” I lied and started tugging my little sister by the arm to make her move.

“Call me Jackie!” My sister insisted. Taking whatever he could get, Pete carried on.

“Sources say[3] the Japanese delegation coming to the White House will be bringing children with them. How do you feel about meeting kids your own age from a foreign country? Will you speak with them? Have you been taking Japanese lessons?”

Ignoring Pete as best we could, Jackie and I crossed the lawn and reached the school. Chelsea Daniels was waiting for us at the top of the stairs and did me the honor of slamming the door in Pete’s face. Through a window, the three of us watched as an irate Agent Walsh ushered the news team away from the school, berating them with the usual arsenal of Irish curse words we were starting to learn from her.

“Gobshite.” Jackie repeated under her breath. “Like the way that sounds.”

“What the actual heck was that all about?” Chelsea asked.

The answer came from Andy Guerra, who, having just escaped his father’s orbit, raced to join us.

“State dinner!” Andy gasped. “There’s gonna be a state dinner at the White House next week. A whole load of important people are gonna be there.”

“I know, it’s gonna be so much fun!” Jackie squealed. I folded my arms and sulked.

“What’s wrong with you?” Chelsea said, raising her eyebrows at me.

“Let’s think.” I said. “I have to wear a stuffy suit, eat weird grownup food, and listen to people talk political gibberish in some other language for three hours. What do you think is wrong?”

“But mom said she’d help me find a new dress to wear that’ll match hers!” Jackie was bouncing with excitement. “And that I’d get to help her be the hostess.”

Andy gave her a playful punch on the shoulder.

“Next First Lady of the United States right here, everyone.”

“Uh huh. Yeah, she can do that.” I said. “If I can get away with it, I’ll just hide in my room with the TV on. I don’t do parties.”

Chelsea put her arms behind her back and shot me a “puppy-dog-eyes” kind of expression.

“You know, maybe the party’ll be more fun if… I dunno… you take someone with you? A plus-one, maybe?”

“No. Definitely not going.”

…

_May 7, 2005_

_The White House, District of Columbia, United States of America_

My parents had something to say about that. My mom insisted, point blank, that the entire First Family needed to act as gracious hosts whenever the White House accommodated guests from foreign countries.

“And you will wear the suit!” Mom finished. “There will be no whining.”

“These guests will be our new friends.” My dad said. “We must make them feel welcome in our home. If you traveled to Tokyo, wouldn’t you expect them to do the same for you?”

Grumbling, I admitted that I would.

Most of the week leading up to the state dinner was spent in one form of preparation or another. My mom and the Chief Usher seemed determined to give the interior of the White House a complete facelift to make our guests more welcome. Decorations were changed and moved about. Throughout the building, several paintings and pictures were suddenly removed, covered up, hidden, or otherwise made to disappear; such as a large portrait of Harry S. Truman, a photograph of US Marines raising the American flag on a hilltop, and a painting of a bomber plane with the words “Enola Gay” on its nose. I asked why the pictures were taken down[4] and the Chief Usher replied:

“It’s… a very long and tragic story. Unless your teachers have covered it in history class already, I shan’t bother you with it.”

Well I found that answer so unhelpful that I went to the Chief of Staff’s office and asked to borrow his laptop computer to do some research. I lost an entire day reading about the Pacific War, a time when the United States and Japanese Empire fought against each other in a conflict that devastated Asia and the Pacific. I learned more about that subject in that afternoon than from any of my teachers ever could have taught me.

The rest of DC was getting ready for the occasion, too. Like the White House, decorations of red and white were being hung from streetlamps and big banners were hung from buildings. I can’t remember what some of them said because their messages were written in Japanese. I do remember being taken aback the first time I saw the Japanese flag. A group of old men were attending some kind of ceremony at the World War Two Memorial on the National Mall. I asked my dad what was going on, and he told me that several Veterans of the Pacific War had gathered for a reunion.

Former American soldiers and former Japanese soldiers, all of whom were now old men, were gathered together at the memorial, trading stories about their experiences. At the memorial itself, there were two flagpoles, each flying an American flag. A US government official took down the flag furthest away from the White House and ran up the red-and-white Japanese flag in its place, flying it at a much lower height than our own star-and-stripe banner. The event ended when someone produced a blood-red flag of the Soviet Union, and the war veterans, American and Japanese alike, cheered and clapped as the Soviet flag was burned and reduced to ashes.

My dad and I watched all of this happen from a top-floor window in the White House. I remember the President shaking his head and sighing:

“I was hoping this alliance would prevent a war, but those folks down there are acting like they’re itching for the next fight.”

…

_May 8, 2005_

_The White House, District of Columbia, United States of America_

They weren’t the only ones. The next day, the Ambassador of the Soviet Union[5] showed up at the White House and he was _furious._ I could hear the shouting in the Oval Office all the way in the main building. Jackie and I tried to pay attention to the TV show we were watching, but the cacophony from the West Wing was overpowering. Finally, there was the smallest of thuds, which was followed by unexpected silence from dad’s office. About two minutes later, Jackie and I saw the Soviet Ambassador being escorted out the south entrance by two perplexed-looking Secret Service agents. Why were the agents so confused? Because the Soviet Ambassador was missing his left shoe.

Our curiosity piqued, Jackie and I abandoned our TV time to go looking for the suddenly-fascinating-yet-vanished shoe. We didn’t have to do that much searching, though. We simply followed the sound of laughter through the halls and into the West Wing, where we found ourselves in the Oval Office.

Inside were six people: My dad, the Vice President, and two members of the US Senate, a member of the Cabinet, and a US Army General. They were all laughing as though the funniest joke in history had just been uttered.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Senator John McCain looked like he was about to fall over. “He really threw his shoe!?”

“He did!” Vice President MacDonald laughed so hard he choked.

Senator Debbie Stabenow was laughing so hard she had to sit down in one of the couches in front of the Resolute Desk. She spotted Jackie and I in the doorway and waved us in.

“Kids!” She said. “You gotta see this to believe it!”

Senator Stabenow pointed towards a window just behind the back of my dad’s chair. We moved around the big Resolute Desk and saw what was amusing everyone. The window pane was cracked, and now bore a resemblance to a spider’s web. A lone shoe rested on the floor, its laces tangled up as though it had just gone skydiving.

General Alexis Alexander,[6] a middle-aged woman with strawberry blonde hair, picked up the shoe and held it away from her as though she expected it to explode.

“What should we do with this thing?” The General asked.

The Secretary of War, Donald Rumsfeld,[7] shook his head and laughed.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Rumsfeld chuckled. “Call the Bomb Squad, have them drop it down a sewer, and blow it to kingdom come!”

“Come on, now.” My dad implored everyone to calm down. “I’m sure mister Ushakov is going to want that back… and he’ll have it.”

“Certainly.” Vice President MacDonald said. “I’ll just call up the Chief Usher and… wait a moment…”

He’d seen the mischievous grin on my dad’s face. The President held up his hand and declared:

“Ambassador Ushakov can have his shoe back at the end of my Administration.”

Then he picked up the phone and called his Chief of Staff.

“Lane? Get someone to bring a glass box in here. I’ve got something new for the trophy case.”

Then he looked at Jackie and I.

“Hey kids, the Ambassador’s shoe smells really bad. Run to the bowling alley downstairs, get the most powerful deodorant you can find.”

“You mean that spray can the really huge Secret Service guy uses?” Jackie asked.

“Yup. That’s the one. There should be a cigarette lighter next to it. Bring that, too.”

“Yeah!” My sister and I said together, then we took off.

It wasn’t often dad explicitly allowed Jackie and I to get up to some mischief, but on those rare occasions it did happen, we were never disappointed. As we vanished down the hallway, I heard my dad saying:

“Now hold on, Senator, I never said I was going to perfectly preserve the damn thing, did I? And he did throw it at my head. He can have whatever’s left.”

…

_May 13, 2005_

_The White House, District of Columbia, United States of America_

Whatever joy I was going through that week evaporated on the night of the state dinner. Back in the days when I was a kid, I was somewhat superstitious. I knew to avoid stepping on sidewalk cracks, lest I break my mom’s back. I steered clear of black cats as best I could, and treated mirrors as though they were made of the most fragile glass on Earth.

But I was downright terrified of going to the state dinner because it was going to start at six o’clock in the evening on _Friday the 13 th. _

I’m aware that Earth’s calendar doesn’t see much use outside of the Orion Arm, so I’ll include this explanation for my non-Human readers: on our world, if the final day of the work week is also the thirteenth day of the month, all bad luck is multiplied tenfold. I went into that dinner expecting nothing short of an unqualified disaster to take place, so I kept my expectations for the evening low.

If there’s one place on Earth a twelve-year-old boy doesn’t belong, it’s a “black tie required dinner party.” Jackie was having a blast, by comparison. She’d fallen in love with the dress mom bought for her, and now Jackie was shadowing mom as she carried out her duties, becoming a “Mini First Lady.”

When we showed up to the state dining room, the guests were already there. About two hundred people all told. Half were Americans and half were guests from Japan. Official records from the day confirmed that the Japanese Prime Minister, some members of his cabinet, several members of the Japanese National Diet, and countless prominent businesspeople from their country were in attendance.

Also attending the meeting was the elderly Princess Chiyako, wife of the (by-then-deceased) brother of the Emperor of Japan. She’d brought along her entire family: Her son Prince Ryobe, his wife Tokiko, and their children: the Princesses Akeno[8] and Asami and their son, the Prince Akio.[9]

It was the youngest of these children, Princess Asami, who saved my evening from becoming the disaster I feared so much. Perhaps I’m favoring her a little too much here, but I think it should be allowed. After all, I would go on to marry that girl, and I won’t have it any other way.

Sometime after all of the speeches were done and the meals served, Princess Akeno and her family came to the high table to greet my dad and our family. That was how I got my first good look at Princess Asami.

To say she had (and still does have) a unique appearance is nothing short of an undersell. As I said before, there were about two hundred people in the room, and everyone was wearing roughly the same unremarkable outfits. Formal suits and dresses that ranged in color from grey to brown and black. Everyone was uniform. Everyone was forgettable. Everyone was boring.

Then here was the girl in blue.

And I do mean it. Most Human children will go through a phase when they would live and die by their favorite color, and at the time Princess Asami was smack in the middle of hers. Every article of clothing she wore was some shade or variation of the color blue. She wore a knee-length sleeveless dress embroidered with a wavelike pattern, as though she’d chosen to wear the ocean itself to dinner. The ribbon keeping her straight black hair in a neat braid looked as though a large blue butterfly was calmly perched atop her head, and all of this served to draw my eyes to her face… and hers is one I will never forget.

As if Princess Asami didn’t already stand out in a crowd, the contrasting colors of her face will always make her unique to me. Pale skin, black hair and eyebrows, and eyes as blue as sapphires. I’ve never met a Human being whose natural eye color has ever come close to matching hers.

Over the past sixty years of our relationship, my wife and I have constantly joked to one another that we wish our very first conversation was about something different. Everyone wishes that the first words they said to their true love would be somehow profound or meaningful. But we’ve come to accept and live with the fact that our first ever chat was about food.

As the family of royals gave their gifts to the Presidential family, Princess Asami offered a handful of Japanese candy to Jackie and me. Our mom snatched the sweets away and said:

“Finish your dinner first!”

“But mo-om” I protested. “I don’t even know what this stuff is!”

In some show of multicultural unity, all of the Americans had been served Japanese food during the state dinner. Clearly the White House chef did not have kids of his own, otherwise he would have known that serving unknown mystery meals to children is not the best idea. Fortunately, Princess Asami spoke up in a helpful way:

“Tonkatsu.”

While the rest of her family was having a good-natured laugh at my expense, Princess Asami was staring at my dish with barely hidden hunger.

“Tonkatsu.” She said again. “It’s pork.”

Well, that changed my opinion about this foreign mystery meal in an instant! I like pork! Asami sidestepped a little so I could see the table where her family had been sitting. She pointed to a chair and dinner setting that had its back to the High Table.

“And what’s that American stuff on my plate?” Asami added.

“That’s a crab cake.”

“Do you like ‘clab cake?” Asami butchered the pronunciation without meaning to.

“Sure. You wanna trade?”

“Deal!”

Asami’s parents were so busy chatting with my dad that they didn’t notice the exchange until it was far too late. The youngest princess had already returned to her family’s side and I was happily wolfing down the finest crab cake the great State of Maryland can produce.

Mom and Dad were definitely paying attention to Jackie and I during our first meeting with Asami and her siblings. Once the two of us finished our meals, the First Lady finally gave us a stay of execution:

“Blake and Jaqueline, why don’t you be good hosts and take the Japanese kids on a tour of the White House?”

We were so happy to get out of that stuffy dining room! So were the other kids! Jackie and I met the other kids in the Red Room, right next door to the State Dining Room. Asami, Akio, and their older sister Akeno all looked just as relived to get away from the party.

“I just wanna take my shoes off and lie down.” Princess Akeno sighed. “Does anyone know what time it is in Tokyo right now?”

“If I told you, you’d start feeling sleepy!” Jackie teased. “Hey, did you guys know the White House has a bowling alley?”

Jackie and I escorted our guests to the bowling alley downstairs. Before we got there, something strange occurred. A fourth person joined us. At the time, none of us ever learned this individual’s name and we never saw them again after that. It would be easy and quite excusable for me to completely forget this stranger and neglect to mention them now. In fact, when I spoke to my wife about this particular moment in our lives, she had no recollection whatsoever about meeting another kid on our way to the bowling alley. Thanks to Igarashi, this stranger’s identity can finally be revealed…

…

Among the many declassified government papers Igarashi showed me was a full report on the recovery of the _JSDF Ark Angel._ Akira Robinson’s timeship was found and confiscated by UN military forces in the ruins of Jilin, China on July 14, 2035; mere days before the Battle for Earth. Several months later, in February of 2036, Secretary-General Laura Harper ordered the vehicle to be dismantled for parts. The ship chassis was saved and eventually a second _Ark Angel_ was built, the one my family still possesses to this very day.

However, the computer core of the original _Ark Angel_ was preserved intact. During the Second Hyperspace War, Akira said to myself and others that she anticipated her ship would be destroyed by other actions long before UN forces were able to salvage it. When her prediction did not come to pass, Akira violently attacked the UN Army units who were attempting to recover the _Ark Angel_ wreck. At first, we quite naturally believed she was attempting to stop the UN from seizing the Time Core, a device that allowed Akira’s ship to travel across time as easily as one crosses a road. However, the decryption of the ship’s computer core reveals a second possible motive.

The central computer of Akira’s timeship contained an incomplete, but nonetheless authoritative list of all disguises, aliases, and false identities used by Akira Robinson throughout her time-travel adventures. Thanks to the byzantine bureaucracy of the UN Secretariat, this crucial document was hidden beneath a mountain of paperwork for almost half a century until Igarashi recovered it and my daughter’s friend Chris applied his vast knowledge of the Paradox to it.

Not only does this list include the many names Akira used for herself, it also featured a description of each disguise, the persona associated with it, a description of its use in the timeline, and a comment on the disguise’s “usability.”

Akira seems to have edited the list in roughly real time as she went along, perhaps to keep the varying identities straight in her own mind. To give some sense of what I found, here is just a small sample of the list of Akira’s false identities, in her own writing:

> _ Jade Pactu: _ _Kushan exile, Kiith Pactu. Used for influencing Arioch Soban-Re. Success. Arioch established romantic connection to San Sjet-sa August 1923. Death staged at Kharakian Genocide. Alias unusable beyond 1923._
> 
> _ Titohara Nopera: _ _Partogan military recruit, for preventing death of Mami Tamihana (Queen of Partoga, 1928 to ~~1952~~ ~~1953~~ ~~1954~~ ~~1955~~ howlongisthiswomangonnalive!?) detected, unmasked by Levakians, 1928. Original body discovered. Death confirmed, unusable beyond 1928. Still successful._
> 
> _ Hinakiri Aranui: _ _Partogan news reporter, for flipping 1928 Partogan Royal Election. Success. Made a mistake while talking to Mami, used wrong name for sister. Mami didn’t notice. Disguise held. Successful exfiltration. Alias retired._
> 
> _ Nya Ririnui: _ _Partogan Acolyte, use for Opossum Maneuver. (Success: Aoraki, 1928)_

As best my friends and I can tell, the “Opossum Maneuver” mentioned is the strategy Akira employs to fake her own death, something she seems to have done many times. Once my companions showed me this list I immediately thought back to that strange dark-haired girl who joined us that night in the White House bowling alley.

…

It was already turning into a special night for me, even then. Jackie, Akio, Akeno, Asami and I were all having a great time in the bowling alley. We knocked down pins, threw gutterballs, and shared stories about life in our respective homes. At one point, the conversation turned to the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. My sister wasn’t interested in talking about ghosts that day, and she tried to shut down the conversation right away.

I remember feeling really hurt. It’s painful, emotionally, to see that nobody believes you. Jackie, Akeno, and Akio all back away from me when I started talking about the ghost. I was convinced that it was my fault they didn’t believe, because I’d somehow failed to convince them or something. It was so uplifting when I realized that Asami was still by my side, and I felt my resolve come back a little when she said:

“You said you heard him up on the second floor, right?”

Asami’s voice caught me by surprise. She was clearly still interested in what I was saying about the Lincoln Room’s ghost.

“Wait a second…” I said slowly. “Do you believe me?”

Asami nodded.

“Yeah, I believe you. Do you believe you?”

“Nnoooo.” Jackie moaned. “Don’t encourage him!”

Asami was starting to get animated. Excitedly, she was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

“Let’s go up to the Lincoln Bedroom!” She said, “Maybe the ghost is there right now! We could catch him like those guys on TV do!”

“That’s cool and all…” I said, then added: “But there’s one big problem.”

I gestured my thumb to the hallway door and said as loudly as I could:

“Hey Jackie! Let’s go outside and talk to strangers!”

Almost immediately, an all-too-familiar voice came through the door:

“Robinson, whisht willya ya gobshite! You’re stayin’ in and I better not hear any giving out!”

Jackie and Akeno giggled. Akio looked shocked. The fourth kid raised her eyebrow. Asami’s eyes went wide.

“That…” I explained. “Is Secret Service agent Kathleen Walsh. She’s been following us since we left the Dining Room. Jackie and I have been putting up with her since we moved into this place.”

This had the opposite effect I was expecting. If anything, Asami was now looking even more adventurous. The threat of being caught breaking the rules seemed to give her a thrill.

“How are we gonna get past her?” Asami squeaked.

Asami’s enthusiasm was giving me new energy, and a plan was coming together in my mind.

“Okay.” I said in a hushed voice. “I think I’ve got a plan to get past Walsh, but we’re going to need a can of soda, a cell phone, Jackie’s hairband, and two of those bowling pins.”

The mysterious dark haired girl shook her head and told us:

“Cool your jets, Robinson. It’ll be easier if I just take one for the team.”

“We don’t even know you!” Jackie whispered.

The strange girl stepped over to the shelf full of bowling shoes and withdrew a black hoodie from behind the counter. She slipped it on, then put her hands in her pockets and slouched forward a bit. She looked like a genuine hooligan. Then she gave us all one mischievous smile and then stepped out into the hallway. There was about ten seconds of silence… in which the five of us just stared at each other, shocked… and then there was a loud crash! Something expensive had just gotten broken! Secret Service Agent Walsh shrieked:

“HEY YOU FECKING EEJIOT!! GET BACK HERE!”

Two sets of footsteps thundered down the hall, the stranger giggling up a storm as she fled from Agent Walsh!

…

For my entire adult life, I did not know who this person was. But now, thanks to the database recovered from the timeship _Ark Angel_ , I am fully confident that this was Akira Robinson herself. The Paradox was pretending to be the granddaughter of the Japanese Prime Minister. At no point in Human history did Junichiro Koizumi have a granddaughter.

…

Princess Asami and I went to the Lincoln Bedroom alone. We spent about half an hour trying to flush out the ghost and see it for ourselves. At one point, I explained the significance of this room to her in greater detail.

“See that desk?” I said, pointing into a corner. “That’s where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.”

“What was that?” she asked.

“A decree that freed the slaves.” I said. “It changed everything about the Civil War.”

“Huh.” Asami sounded thoughtful. “You know, my country had its own civil war in the past. Actually, we had two. Those fights were, like, really important to our culture… which means…”

She stood in the center of the room and looked around herself. I remember thinking she looked like a character in a Disney movie who was trying to find some kind of hidden magic.

“You said you never actually saw him, right?”

“Yeah, just noises.” I replied.

“And you said this desk is where he freed slaves?”

“Uh… kinda?” I wasn’t sure how to answer. “He signed a paper that allowed his armies to free slaves, if that’s what you mean.”

Asami’s face contorted as though she was struck by a sudden thought. This whole time, she had been casually resting one of her hands on Lincoln’s desk. She suddenly withdrew it as though the wood was now burning hot.

“What?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“I think it’s a _Shintai.”_ Asami whispered.

“A… wait. A what?”

Asami put her fingers to her temples, she was struggling to figure out the right words to describe the idea in her head.

“It’s like, you know how spirits don’t just hang around in the open.” She spoke slowly, as though double checking the Japanese-to-English conversion in her head. “They need a body, a container, to be inside of.”

“Okay…” I urged her to go on.

“Lots of things can be _Shintai._ ” Asami said. “Normally its stuff like mirrors or _gohei_ or _magatama._ But… maybe… maybe this room…”

I’ll be brutally honest. Asami just about lost me at this point. I assumed she was referencing something from _Shinto_ , the dominant religion of Japan. In fact, many years later, she confirmed for me that this assumption was correct. She was trying to explain Japanese spirits to me. Lost in her own train of thought, Asami kicked off her shoes and got down on her knees, facing Lincoln’s bed. She clasped her hands in front of her, like she was praying, and started talking to the bed in a slow mumble.

Asami did this for about half a minute before she looked up at me. She must have read the confused look on my face because all the color drained out of her cheeks and her expression grew very uncomfortable.

“You think I look silly, don’t you?” Asami said as I watched her. “You don’t believe me at all.”

She looked like she was going to cry.

Over half a century later, I can still remember as clear as yesterday the exact thought that went through my mind:

_She believed me earlier. If I don’t show her the same kindness in return, I’ll be a horrible person. And she’ll probably cry._

It was a split-second decision get down on my knees right next to her and say:

“I believe you. Honest.”

I don’t know how long we spent doing Shinto prayers, but that’s what we were doing when Agent Walsh came in and caught us. We were kneeling on the floor of the Lincoln Bedroom together, talking out loud to the President’s bed, asking his spirit to show itself. In hindsight, decades later, the two of us agree that we must have looked really weird.

Sure, we both got in trouble for our little escapade. My parents chewed me out something fierce the next day. I was “irresponsible and reckless” or something like that. Princess Asami got it pretty bad from her folks too.

But you know… getting in trouble together is, without a doubt in my mind, the fastest and most effective way for two children to bond. Asami and I became friends that night. We actually held hands during that long walk of shame as Agent Walsh took us back to our families. Before she flew back to Japan, Asami managed to sneak her phone number and email address into my hand.

But there is one other detail… one small thing that was always important to us…

Ever since that day, the words “ _I believe you”_ have meant more to us than the words “ _I love you.”_

* * *

[1] Additional note on the modern-day population of Japan: In accordance with the “Sol Invictus” policy of the United Nations government, non-Human residents of Japan are not permitted to enter parts of the archipelago determined to be of “inordinate value to Human history and culture.” The sites include but are not limited to: Kanna, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Okinawa, Obama, and Nagasaki. This rule applies to all member-states of the UN and historic sites within their borders.

[2] NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance between the United States, Canada, and a very large number of states in Europe. Created specifically to counter the growing power of the Soviet Union. During the collapse of the so-called “Communist Empire” in the early 1990’s, many of Russia’s former allies joined NATO.

[3] Chris Wright is adamant that Pete Guerra’s “source” was Akira Robinson, for reasons beyond us.

[4] Harry Truman was the President of an earlier incarnation of the United States of America. He was one of America’s leaders during the Pacific War. Truman was not an architect of Japan’s defeat, but he was America’s Commander-in-Chief on the day Japan surrendered. The photograph was of US Marines fighting at the Battle of Iwo Jima, a crucial turning point in the conflict between America and Japan. The Enola Gay was a primitive airbreather that executed the first nuclear weapon strike in Human history against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. All of these images would have offended the Japanese delegation and were therefore removed from the White House.

[5] Yuri Ushakov (1947-2021) was the ambassador of the Soviet Union to the United States from 1998 until the outbreak of World War Three in 2006. During the war, he was allowed to return home to Russia where he became a military advisor to pro-Soviet fighters in Japan until the war ended. Ushakov survived the Invasion of Earth and became a member of the Anti-ADVENT resistance movement. He reportedly harbored Human supremacist views and may have joined the Reapers. Ushakov was captured by ADVENT Army soldiers in 2019 during a combat operation. The Global Truth and Reconciliation Commission confirmed Ushakov died in captivity in 2021.

[6] Alexis Alexander (1979-2066) was President of the United States from 2013 until 2015. Served in the US Army during the wars in Afghanistan and Japan, attained the rank of Lieutenant General before being elected Vice President. Alexander was a major supporter of the Resistance and UN during the Second Hyperspace War. Following the end of the conflict, Alexander spent the rest of her life on a military campaign to reunite the United States. Alexander was killed during a commando raid executed by unknown operatives in 2066. The technical sophistication and complexity of the assault on Alexander’s compound suggests she was killed by UN Space Rangers.

[7] Donald Rumsfeld (1932-2015) was an American soldier who served as Secretary of War from 1975 until 1985 and again from 2005 until 2015. He served under three US Presidents: Richard Nixon (1965-1985) JD Robinson (2005-2013) and Alexis Alexander. (2013-2015) Killed in action during the Invasion of Earth.

[8] Akeno (1990-2015) Oldest child of Prince Ryobe and Princess Tokiko. Sister of Chihiro Tachibana. Murdered by the enemy during the Invasion of Earth.

[9] Akio (Born 1992) Middle child of Prince Ryobe and Princess Tokiko. Brother of Chihiro Tachibana. As of the time this book was published (in 2084) this person is the current Emperor of Japan.


End file.
